Kazakhstan SMS Disaster
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A story about how unexpected viral growth through SMS messaging led to a massive bill in Kazakhstan.
"We did one through SMS and over the weekend it went viral. During the week Monday through Friday everything looked fine - it was growing but not at a crazy pace. We didn't realize the viral coefficient was 2, and so over the weekend it took off and started compounding on a big number.
We racked up $120,000 in SMS charges. It was going through Kazakhstan - we didn't even know we were going to grow in Kazakhstan. It went crazy and turns out texting in Kazakhstan is super expensive. So we had to pay off $120,000 in 2 days."
Shaan Puri
Host of MFM
Shaan Puri is the Chairman and Co-Founder of The Milk Road. He previously worked at Twitch as a Senior Director of Product, Mobile Gaming, and Emerging Markets. He also attended Duke University.