Building a startup using Twilio APIs

A Twilio Signal London Recap & How we build our company using Twilio !

We all loved this abiliy to build amazing things by assembling little pieces of platic or metal together. Well, building a start-up is exactly the same thing. We try to solve a problem by assembling little pieces of software together.

Prior to Les Tontons’ amazing journey, during Spring 2012 one of my customer (I used to be an iOS & web consultant) asked me an SMS feature. While at WWDC (The Apple International Developer Conference / San Francisco) I remember this HUUUGE and red billboard about a company who allows to send SMS with ease. It was Twilio !

Few minutes later, I had my AccountSID and my Auth Token, installed the PHP wrapper and with few lines of code and less than 10 minutes coding I ended up with a cool, simple and efficient tool to send SMS. Brilliant !

… as typing 10 lines of code.

OK, here if you don’t know how to code, it could be slightly complicated. But for us “coders” had you ever imagine that sending a text could be that simple ?

I don’t want to waste my time (and yours) in demos, to be cristal clear : Twilio is fu***ng easy to use, test them out, you’ll be delighted.

At Les Tonton, we use their APIs for almost everything !

When users fill the phone numbers input, we definitely need to verify them (is it an existing number ?), using Twilio’s Lookup API, we check if the phone exists and if so, then we send a text message with a 6 digits code, in order to be sure that it’s the right user phone number. Clear, simple, easy !

Using those SMS, we can inform our Tontons that a Mission is available on their schedule in few minutes/hours. As our drivers are most of the time hitting the road, they can be informed — almost in real time — that something new has been posted and is available.

Even with smartphone, our customers may not have access to their email inbox all the time, so what’s the best way to keep them informed of the status of their order (their delivery in our case) ? SMS of course, we always have our cell phone in our pocket. Using Twilio Copilot (a feature which powers SMS delivery with phone number and content intelligence) we’re able to reach anybody from France to Spain, through Belgium, Luxembourg, or Switzerland at scale, with confidence and still with 5 lines of javascript !

Dealing with push notifications is really complicated to deal with (device token, SSL certificates, and so on…). Last year, Twilio launched Notify, an API which allows you to reach customers the way they want (SMS, iOS APNS, Android’s FCM/GCM, and soon more) with 8 lines of code, with a (soon arriving) auto-fallback service. Great !

Last summer, during Signal Conf SF, they release Functions, a great way to host part of your communication script on Twilio’s own servers, this fall they add support for NPM packages, and THAT’S cool. You can now (by example and among others) send a Slack notification when you get a call, really handy.

Twilio has several hundred thousands of customers, from big players (Uber, General Electric, Coca-cola and others) to start-ups (like us), and they filled their IPO, … kinda BIG company. So you easily imagine my surprise when Jeff told me, at their digital executive forum the day before Signal, that he knew our service. We aren’t a big customer with big bills… 🤔

There was definitely a squeletton in the cupboard.

So thank you so much for this consecration, and thank you for what your company & teams allow us to do. Can’t wait to see what you’ll release !

Oh, and yes ! I got a signed Fax Machine ! Collector (less than 20 around the globe ! 😛)

Can’t wait for Signal.2018 ! And of course, I’ll be there !

Next conference we’ll attend : Slush 2017.

And if you liked this article, don’t hesitate to share it ! And spread your love by tapping on the applause 👏🏻 icon below !

PS : If you wonder, No ! I wasn’t paid a penny to make this article, my way of thinking is “delighted customers are the best evangelists you could find”

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