As Rent In Shoreditch Skyrockets, Hoxton Mix Gives Startups Virtual Offices using Twilio

As Rent In Shoreditch Skyrockets, Hoxton Mix Gives Startups Virtual Offices using Twilio

Central London’s Shoreditch neighborhood has become a hub for startups looking to make it big.  As people flood into Shoreditch, rents rise in tandem. It’s hard for startups to find affordable office space in the neighborhood. Nevertheless, you can still find restaurants that exclusively serve cereal in Shoreditch — addressing a problem no one had, but nonetheless finding product market fit.

Hoxton Mix solves a more practical problem. They give startups a place to work in their Shoreditch co-working space. And even if startups can’t afford to be in Shoreditch, they can still be *air quotes* in Shoreditch.

In A Virtual Office, The Walls Are Made of Code

This is how it works. Hoxton Mix gives startups an address and handles their post (that’s mail for you Americans) in addition to their inbound calls. Each startup gets a Twilio number. When a big client dials up a three-person startup’s Twilio powered number, they’re greeted by a Hoxton Mix receptionist that will forward, hold, or route the call appropriately. Now that three-person startup based in a living room in the suburbs feels an awful lot like a bigger company based in Shoreditch.

Here’s the kicker, the receptionists don’t have to be in Shoreditch either. Hoxton Mix built out a call suite with call forwarding, screen pops, call history, and intelligent call escalation with Twilio. This allows any receptionist to work for any Hoxton Mix company from anywhere. When a receptionist receives a call, they’ll see a screen pop on their laptop containing the vital information they need to answer the call: the company’s name, the caller’s history with the company, and who to forward the call to.

It All Started With A Few Lines of TwiML

Hoxton Mix first rolled out Twilio-powered call forwarding using only a few lines of XML in a TwiML bin. They built out their solution with ease, relying heavily on the Twilio docs and a few Twilio developers when they got stuck.

“It was clear that the customer support was a level above with Twilio,”  said Joshua Summers, Product Development & Growth Analyst at Hoxton Mix.

“There’s not many companies where you get access to engineers” added Chris Sees, co-founder of Hoxton Mix.

Now Hoxton Mix is has over 6,000 companies in their roster with a 3% month over month growth. While real estate availability in Shoreditch is shrinking, they’re expanding their business using Twilio.