Comment by dade_ | Hacker News Reader

Comment by dade_ | Hacker News Reader

Twillio's business made no sense to me until now. I can build the exact same apps for customers using SMS gateways for a lower rate. Sure, they provide a single provider for a small company, but there are better features and rates offered by local companies in each country. So how many small companies have an SMS app that requires global SMS gateways?

From a technical perspective, I think what they built is great, but at rates around a penny per message, how could I make a profit? A single large customer such as Uber makes sense, but if your business success is based on a unicorn, then good luck to you.

I really think that Twillio is first to market because of the inept management of telcos, but how do you compete when they figure it out? Further, the rates per message drop dramatically on a contract for volume, especially in the wholesale market.

Then of course there is O365 Microsoft Skype for business, and I expect that all of these capabilities will be available with their UCWA api.

Before I worked for Twilio, I worked for an tier-1 SMS aggregator. Integrating with the various providers - even in the US - was a pain in the ass and connectivity fees started in the $10k+ range with monthly minimums and 10c/message iirc. When I played with Twilio then, I knew they'd win, it was just a matter of when.

When I joined Twilio, I focused on use cases that connected communications to revenue.. either on the sales side or the customer support side. Sure, 1c/message in isolation seems expensive until you realize that by sending a handful of messages (aka pennies) and being more transparent with customers, your churn drops (aka dollars). At that point, it's not even a debate.

On the international front, it got even more complex. The aggregator I worked for had contracts in the US, LATAM, and throughout Europe, each one had different interfaces, connectors, and agreements. Twilio has one. Once again, not even a debate.

Disclosure: I've been out of Twilio for 3.5 years, so no inside info here but I still have shares.

I've been a Twilio customer since 2011. We use it to send alerts to our customers (both voice and SMS). I like it because it's easy to use. Even if we're paying more than we could be, having an easy-to-use and stable API is well worth it. Also, Twilio is a minor expense in our budget compared to what developing and maintaining a multiple-provider solution with SMS gateways would cost.

On the note of "I really think that Twillio is first to market because of the inept management of telcos, but how do you compete when they figure it out?", the time for them "figuring it out" has come and passed imo.

All the big players tried to create their own offerings to compete with Twilio years ago, but they didn't catch on because they weren't developer-friendly. At this point, they prefer to remain the platform that companies like Twilio build upon from what I can tell.

(disclaimer: former Twilio engineer)

You can, but if you have significant volume or a diverse customer base, it can be a huge pain in the butt. Sort of like running your own mail server in some ways.

They take care of all of that. That's worth something.

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