Not OP, but their approach to devrel was by itself a huge differentiator early on.
We’ve become so accustomed to developer-oriented marketing and programs that it’s easy to forget that Twilio was really at the cutting edge of this movement and should be credited (or at least acknowledged) for the easy on-ramps most developer programs now provide.
Twilio also pushed the envelope in terms of what it means to talk to their developer community. Greg Baugues’ talk titled “Devs and Depression” reached a lot of people who were struggling, and was one of the reasons I personally sought out therapy, and my life is much better for it.
Early Twilio was a very human-oriented company, and I think many developers and developer programs are better for it.
I'm Adam Washington. I was a couple of years behind you, but we bumped into each other socially a few times over the years. As a refresher, I was also the sophomore with the glasses in Shadiow's class that accidentally kicked over the trash can while trying to explain how graphs work.
Back in high school, I thought you were the brightest and chillest guy on the planet. My first Linux install was because I overheard you talking about it in class and I wanted to see what the fuss was about. Anyway, it's been a treat seeing you pop up again after all these years and discovering that my nostalgia lenses were right - you really are that smart and cool.
I was an intern at GigaOM in 2009 (a popular tech blog that ran conferences), and my first memory of Twilio was going to the sales people and trying to convince them to give Twilio a discounted booth because I thought the product was so great. I remember the salesperson laughing and saying "this booth costs more money than they have in their bank account", but there was some extra inventory and we got them the booth.
The early people all just had this vibe of technical-but-not-complicated. It's common now, but at the time it was such a breath of fresh air. They were one of the first companies to pitch "easy of use" (compared to "look at how amazingly complex we are!"). I know this is super obvious now, but back then I had never felt anything like that.
All the people I met (I specifically remember Danielle) were friendly and excited... not in a sales-y way, but in a "I just love what we're doing and want you to, too" way. And again, I know this doesn't feel unique now, but that's because Twilio helped shape how we think about all of this.
I loved their attitude, such as this talk from John Sheehan (https://www.heavybit.com/library/video/runscope-ceo-and-twil...) about how they look at customers. I remember him saying they would fly to any little city that would have them and buy pizza and just hang out. They caught on early that there were so many tech people out there around the country who would become lifelong supporters because of little gestures like this.
Overall, a lot of what I can say about Twilio is super obvious now. But it's kinda like how people watch Friends for the first time in 2023 and say "meh it's a pretty generic sitcom". It's because they created the whole genre and shifted how everything thinks.
> Overall, a lot of what I can say about Twilio is super obvious now. But it's kinda like how people watch Friends for the first time in 2023 and say "meh it's a pretty generic sitcom". It's because they created the whole genre and shifted how everything thinks.
I feel this way about most classic media. Famous movies and books almost always feel underwhelming to me because the notable ideas have been reused and referenced so many times that the original ends up feeling like a retread decades later. Interesting connection to tie this phenomenon to tech marketing and dev relations.
We’ve become so accustomed to developer-oriented marketing and programs that it’s easy to forget that Twilio was really at the cutting edge of this movement and should be credited (or at least acknowledged) for the easy on-ramps most developer programs now provide.
Twilio also pushed the envelope in terms of what it means to talk to their developer community. Greg Baugues’ talk titled “Devs and Depression” reached a lot of people who were struggling, and was one of the reasons I personally sought out therapy, and my life is much better for it.
Early Twilio was a very human-oriented company, and I think many developers and developer programs are better for it.