Michael and Johnny look at Twilio, another SaaS company that has been growing during the COVID-19 pandemic. We explore its history, its CEO's interesting background, the company's keys to success, and what its future potentially looks like. Finally, we evaluate it against our Rich Tech Poor Tech criteria.
In the News of the Week, we look at the recent revelations around apps copying iOS clipboard contents when they weren't supposed to and discuss Facebook's Ad Boycott and its potential ramifications.
Recorded Date: Sunday, July 5, 2020
Ideas of the Week:
- Twilio should not sell itself!
- Create a Codeless Ecosystem by combining Shopify, Stripe, Twilio with a No-Code platform to enable non-developers to build online businesses via a one-stop shop solution
Time Stamps
- 00:00:25: iOS clipboard privacy issue exposed
- 00:08:50: Facebook Ad Boycott
- 00:16:03: Twilio
- 00:26:01: Keys to success
- 00:39:59: The Future of Twilio
- 00:44:05: Rich Tech or Poor Tech
- 00:50:15: Ideas of the week
Highlights
- - Over 50 iOS apps caught copying clipboard contents when they aren't supposed to thanks to new iOS 14 policies/privacy alerts
- - There will be more privacy revelations that come out of iOS 14's new policies
- - What privacy should users expect & what value do they get for sharing their PII?
- - When you need to add a communication layer to your app/service, you use Twilio
- - Being in the early days of AWS, Twilio's co-founder & CEO, Jeff Lawson had a front-row seat to the power of build cloud infrastructure businesses
- - Built a call center product after noticing its users were building their own solutions on the Twilio platform
- - Twilio's stock increased from $77 to $232 since pandemic due to general positive trends in cloud businesses
- - Twilio's developer-centric marketing, ease of use, reliability contributed
- - Keys to its success: ease of use, reliability, listening to customers, having a good product, good business culture, hiring the right people, and cultivating good partnerships
- - Who would purchase Twilio? Microsoft, Google, or AWS could make a play
- - Can Twilio become part of these Tier 2 sized companies that can continue to thrive as an independent company?
- - Twilio has democratized Telecommunications and lowered the barrier for apps to communicate with their customers sooner
- - Industry: Telecommunications is an expensive business with high barriers of entry -> Rich Tech
- - Labor: Mostly white-collar labor, good benefits & wages, any employee can potentially become CEO -> Rich Tech
- - Wealth Generation for clients: Clients are able to unlock the ability to communicate with their own customers sooner thanks to Twilio -> Rich Tech
- - Wealth Generator for society: Enable the growth of other companies serving as a Revenue Accelerator, so it generates wealth indirectly
- - Twilio is a Rich Tech company
