For a16z speedrun founders
One US number for speedrun, and for after you fly home
Speedrun cohorts meet in person in San Francisco, and many teams come from outside the US. The number you hand out in those weeks should keep working when you’re back home.
a16z’s speedrun accelerator runs in-person cohorts in San Francisco for games, consumer and AI teams, and a lot of those teams come from outside the US. For a few weeks you’re in the city, meeting partners, publishers, players and investors, and everyone asks for a number. If you hand out a roaming foreign number, calls get expensive and texts go missing. If you buy a US SIM, it stops being useful the day you fly home.
A number that outlasts the program
- Local US number, $2 a month. Pick 415 or 628 for San Francisco, or any area code you like. It doesn’t need a US address or a US company.
- Rings wherever you are. During the program, on your laptop in SF. After, in your browser in Seoul, São Paulo or Warsaw. Calls to US numbers cost about 2.7¢ a minute.
- Texts and codes in one inbox on web, iOS and Android, with 50 texts a month included.
- One balance for the team. Your producer, community lead and co-founder all use the same line with no seat fees.
Building agents or voice features?
Plenty of speedrun teams ship AI characters, companions and agents. VoixCall can give an agent its own phone number. It can call a real phone from your instructions, answer a number, and hand the call to a person, at about 12¢ to 25¢ a minute. That makes it a quick way to test a voice experience on a real phone line before you build your own telephony. See how to give your AI agent a phone number.
Set it up before you fly
- Create an account at app.voixcall.com. Your first call is free.
- Buy a San Francisco number under My Numbers and put it on your deck, website and email signature.
- Install the iOS or Android app for calls on the go, and keep the web app open at your desk so incoming calls ring.
Questions
Does a US SIM do the same job?
Only while you’re in the US. A prepaid SIM needs the phone in the country to receive calls without roaming, and many expire if unused. A VoixCall number rings in your browser and apps anywhere for $2 a month.
Can my whole studio share the number?
Yes. Invite teammates to a shared balance; there are no seat fees. Incoming calls ring on every open tab of the web app.
Can it receive codes from Steam, Apple or app stores?
Most services send codes to VoixCall numbers, but some refuse internet phone numbers. Test each one with a $2 number first, and keep a mobile number on accounts you can’t afford to lose.
Is VoixCall part of the speedrun program?
No. VoixCall isn’t affiliated with a16z or speedrun. This page is for founders in or applying to the program.