In payroll processing, there are a handful of major entrenched providers. Going (almost) directly at them is the only approach. Yes, you have to differentiate yourself but odds are there's a rip & replace coming.
In 2012, outside of SMS aggregators, sending and receiving text messages was still novel. Add in automated calling and there were some options with Asterisk (worked on that many times) but still novel. Going after that tiny market may have been cheap but probably not effective.
If MessageBird started a price war, that's a weak value prop by itself but could work so followups:
- How much have they driven down pricing across the space since they've come to the US?
- If that value prop is the main motivator, how much share have they taken?
- Are you going in on their IPO?
(I don't care either way, I don't own any Twilio shares anymore.)