An inside look at one of our sponsors: The Grasshopper Group

I want TSF Sponsors to be a part of the community. Readers and advertisers should have a healthy relationship. We decided one of the ways we could make this happen is to provide a behind the scenes look at Grasshopper. I asked Jonathan Kay from Grasshopper to sit down with me and have a quick 5 minute interview .

Contact Jonathan Kay – Grasshopper Group jkay@grasshoppergroup.com

When I was looking for a solution for my small business I started using Google Voice. It was a huge mistake. Google Voice was fine for my personal use, but things started to fall apart when I tried to shoehorn it into my business needs.

Grasshopper has been around for the past 8 years and has a fantastic grasp on the challenges entrepreneurs face while setting up their phones. You can think of them as “Google Voice” of the business world. In addition of covering their basic features, Grasshopper provides: Unlimited Extensions (or just extensions period), Unlimited voicemail boxes, dial by name directory.

• After hours greetings, vacation / holiday greetings…do you really want to receive calls at 9pm on a Tuesday?

• Grasshopper gives you simple number portability. This was one of the biggest issues I had with Google Voice, and Grasshopper solves the problem flawlessly.

• On hold music (some customers actually record a commercial or a joke instead of music…people get real creative)

• Multiple number’s which all forward / connect to one account. Say for instance you want a local and toll free number. With Google voice you can only forward 1 number to 1 cell phone…not multiple extensions or numbers.

• Grasshopper also has 24/7 / 365 US based support.

Be sure to check Grasshopper out!

Win $150 worth Google AdWords credit for your startup from LaunchBit

LaunchBit is one of TSF’s fantastic sponsors (as seen in our sidebar). LaunchBit helps entrepreneurs get started by walking them through the process of building a startup.

I recently received an email from one of my contacts at LaunchBit, Elizabeth Yin, and she mentioned she’d like to giveaway $150 worth of Google AdWords to TSF readers. I’ve included the email below so check it out for your chance to win!

We’re rolling out a new tool to help entrepreneurs get traffic to their landing page super easy. We’re offering 2 lucky readers $150 in free Google AdWords credit using our tool.  

To win, a reader must:

• Have a LaunchBit Guide account (Normally $20, but TSF readers can get one for free be using coupon code: “STARTUPFOUNDRY”)
• Tweet by 6/14/2011 11:59pm PDT “I want $150 ad credit from @launchbit cuz…” [and add their own compelling reason] 

We’ll pick the 2 winners shortly after the deadline based on the most memorable truthful reason.