Twilio Startup Labs Founder Spotlight: Ethan Sherbondy & Arjun Arora, Betafi

Twilio Startup Labs Founder Spotlight: Ethan Sherbondy & Arjun Arora, Betafi

Company Name: Betafi
Founder Name(s): Ethan Sherbondy & Arjun Arora
LinkedIn: Betafi Company Page
Industry: UX Research, Software as a Service, Video Intelligence
Stage / Funding: Seed-Stage
Location: Singapore

This is a post in a series of interviews with startup founders who have worked with Twilio Startup Labs, a program for developers at early-stage startups to learn how to build, prototype, and demo on Twilio. We had the pleasure of working with Ethan Sherbondy & Arjun Arora on their startup, Betafi.

Describe your startup journey in 160 characters or less (the original length of a text message)

Betafi is a product feedback platform that injects the voice of the customer into the development process, from user interviews to usability tests over video calls.

Why did you start your company?

We had both witnessed how vital it is to have strong, interactive customer feedback loops as part of a product’s development process in previous roles building software products. At the outset of COVID, we experienced the struggle of managing this process in a remote-first environment, and spoke to over 300 product leaders across design, product management, and engineering roles, to hone in on their pain points and the obstacles they faced when trying to systemize their in-house UX and customer research process.

How are you building on Twilio? E.g., How do you use email, SMS, WhatsApp, Verify, etc. to communicate with your customers?

We are actively using Twilio’s Video SDK for our own live video experience, as well as Twilio’s SMS offering as part of our participant onboarding flow. We are likewise now looking into deepening our Twilio integration with WhatsApp and other offerings over the coming months.

What has the benefit or commercial impact been for your business since using Twilio?

Twilio helped us get off the ground quickly with a robust live video experience that we’ve been able to iterate on since the formation of the company, with a solid foundation of support across desktop browsers and mobile.

By building on Twilio what has the impact been for your customers?

Customers have benefitted from a reliable core video platform that works across geographies.

Are there any future Twilio Products that you plan to integrate into your startup and if so why?

Yes, we are now looking into deepening our Twilio integration with WhatsApp and other offerings over the coming months, in order to cater our participant onboarding and reminder experience to markets where WhatsApp is the dominant communication channel relative to SMS/email.

Have you enjoyed Twilio Startup Labs? And if so why?

Yes, it has been great to get to interact directly with knowledgeable folks on the Twilio team, as well as to see the passion of fellow entrepreneurs developing amazing experiences atop Twilio.

Do you have a recording of your demo and how you are using Twilio that you would like to share here?

What is the best piece of advice you would give to founders who are looking to build on Twilio?

Regardless of your level of experience, Twilio makes it easy to dive in and build something magical with just a few lines of code. Go for it!

What excites you most about being a founder?

Getting to empower fellow builders and be a lever for product teams around the world is an amazing opportunity. We have been delighted to get to serve folks building amazing products, and it is a magical feeling when somebody finds out about you, signs up self-serve for your product online, and starts getting value out of it. We have been blown away by the global reach, despite building from Singapore, we now have users from all over the world. It’s a humbling and continuous learning experience.

Thank you for reading. If you would like to read more Twilio Startup Labs Founder Spotlight interviews and learn how others build, prototype, and demo on Twilio, please check out the series of articles here.

For questions about Twilio Startup Labs or to learn how to get involved, please contact Frank Y. Owusu at fyawowusu@twilio.com. 

To find out more about how Twilio supports Startups, check out Grow with Twilio.