This letter was emailed to customers earlier today:

Dear Grasshopper Entrepreneurs,

Ah, what an eventful year it’s been. While large corporations received big bailouts, entrepreneurs like you used the unpredictable economic climate to create jobs, innovate, and help turn our economy around. Your passion for finding new solutions to old problems makes us want to find even more ways to help your businesses grow in 2010.

You inspired us

Since many of you sign up for Grasshopper shortly after starting your business, we’ve had the chance to see people joining our entrepreneur movement in droves. Many of you faced enormous adversity, perhaps after being laid off from a job or in attempting to find capital to get your business up and running. So many of the entrepreneurs we’ve spoken to have made the “big leap” this year after facing uncertain times, and have turned a less than ideal situation into an opportunity to pursue your passion. Your stories have been moving. Your resilience and commitment to making your dreams a reality has inspired us.

We have some great interviews with our co-founders this month. Read those and all of the latest stories featuring Grasshopper:

• Your Hidden Potential Interviews David Hauser

  Find out a little more about David’s background, building Grasshopper and being an entrepreneur. David gives a few tips on running a business and some good advice for young entrepreneurs.

• Grasshopper Takes Bronze Momentum Award in WOMMYs

  The Grasshopper “Entrepreneurs can change the world” campaign took Bronze in the Momentum category. See who else placed in the Word of Mouth Marketing Awards.

• A Grasshopper Answers My Phone

  Laura Legendary, owner of Legendary Insights talks about her use of the Grasshopper virtual phone system. She was also a featured blogger on Grasslands this past month.

• The Web 2.0 Show Interviews David Hauser

  Adam Stacoviak talks with David Hauser and Jonathan Kay about Grasshopper and Grasshopper Labs. A great interview to listen to, you’ll get insights into Grasshopper, Chargify and starting new businesses.

• Tips for Inspiration and Creativity from Co-Founder Siamak Taghaddos

  Under 30 CEO interviews Siamak Taghaddos on finding inspiration, getting creative and moving out of the office to find those new ideas.

Free Trial Ends Today!

Just a reminder, the Grasshopper Unlimited Voice to Text 60-day free trial ends today for most of our customers.

• Do you love having your voice mail transcribed?
• Did you enjoy not having to listen to your voice mail?
• Will you miss it?

If you answered yes to these questions, head over to your account and sign up today.

The Unlimited Voice to Text feature is just $10 a month and each voice mail transcription is done digitally to ensure your privacy and a quick turnaround. The option of human transcription is just a click away (at no extra cost!) and allows for improved accuracy in your transcription.

Read more about Voice to Text:

• Voice to Text Reviews & Reminder
• View Your Voice Mails with Unlimited Voice to Text
• Unlimited Voice to Text Feature w/ FAQs

*The Unlimited Voice to Text feature is now referred to as “Read Your Voicemail”

*As of 4/28/2010 there will be no free trial upon signup

Instead of the usual Friday Flix videos we present on the team blog, this week we thought we would provide a “How To” on managing messages in your Grasshopper account.

This video gives a quick overview on managing voice mails, including mapping the call to a specific location on a map, adding contact info, sending an email and storing.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EUy6BJlYP4k]

Log in to your Grasshopper account to get started. Don’t have one? Sign up today!

At the beginning of October we announced the launch of the new Unlimited Voice to Text feature and the feedback has been great:

“This is probably the *best* innovation in voice mail I’ve seen in years. The automated transcription is amazingly accurate, so much that I didn’t realize the first couple of times that it was real. Just assumed it was boilerplate text for marketing the new feature.”

“Great Voice to text feature!! Thanks for bringing it in house. I’ve already signed up to the service.”

@elizabethpw: my voicemail system now emails me voice-to-text transcriptions of each voicemail. THAT IS AWESOME!

@ducttape: Grasshopper phone service just added VMs to text something I’ve wanted for a while – Nice!

As a reminder to everyone, the 60 day free trial is over December 7th (that’s Monday!), for those customers who were signed up prior to October 9th.