Ask Jeff Lawson Anything: Product Hunt Live Chat Recap

Ask Jeff Lawson Anything: Product Hunt Live Chat Recap

When asked a tough question, a wise man once said, “Bears, beets, Battlestar Galactica.” Jeff Lawson was asked a tough question on Product Hunt’s Live Chat and his response was “the internet of bears.”

Ryan Hoover wanted to know the most creative Twilio use cases Jeff had seen. A group of scientists’ Twilio SMS powered bear tracking collars made the cut. That is the internet of bears. That’s also only one of the gems from Jeff’s live chat.

Jeff talked about how he favors small focused teams over large groups, how he dealt with rejection in Twilio’s early years, how Mitch Kapor influenced his life, and how developers are saving lives using communication tools to diagnose Parkinson’s or save victims of human trafficking.

Here are a few highlights below. Read the whole thing right here.

What Are Some Of The Most Creative Twilio Use Cases You’ve Seen?

Jeff’s Answer: Diagnosing Disease, Tracking Bears

Parkinson’s Voice Initiative: “ Dr. Max Little developed a way to detect Parkinson’s disease through a simple voice recording. Via one phone call, Parkinson’s patients are able to test, monitor and treat their disease through an application built on Twilio.”

The Internet of Bears: “[Researchers] used to have to jump out of helicopters and tranquilize the poor animals to put a data collection collar on it…So these researchers instead fitted the bears with collars that, with very little power, and in areas w/ out good cell coverage – can transmit the data off the collar via SMS on 2G networks.” #InternetOfBears

What do you believe in that others might find crazy?

Jeff’s Answer: Small Teams Power Success

“I think it’s the power of a small team of developers, like 2-3 people, to build something extraordinary. I think back to how much the three founders of Twilio accomplished in our first year with so much focus. It’s common to believe that building important new things require lots of staffing and strategic planning – but I think innovation requires experimentation, and a very small group of focused people are the real unit of progress in a company.”

How do you manage developer onboarding?

Jeff’s Answer: Write Code, Disregard Shenanigans

“We just wear our own shoes as developers – and ask does this make sense?” adding “We also try to make sure we use words in our API and docs that are familiar to users of the technology, not those steeped in it. For example, the industry calls phone numbers “DIDs” (Direct Inward Dial) – we’re like WTF we call them phone numbers.”

How do you see communication changing within apps and products using new technologies whether it’s with Twilio products or other platforms?

Jeff’s Answer: Software + Context = Different Way of Communicating

“Software will completely change communications in the coming years. The biggest impact of marrying software and communications will be how you can so thoroughly integrate the communications into the software experience”

Example: A Tale of Two Flight Changes

#1 – The 150 Year Old Way: “When you’re in your airline app, and you’re trying to change your flight but you can’t (at least I usually can’t for some horrible UX reason) – then you click on the “Contact Us” area of the app and you get a toll free phone number. Click it and you’re out into your phone’s dialer – and all the context of who you are, what flight you’re looking at, etc. are lost to the 150 year old communications network.”

#2 – The Better Way: “We’re seeing customers start to integrate the mobile app experience and communications – so that you can click “Talk to Us” right from the app to initiate an IP call – and because you’re authenticated in the app – an agent can greet you by name, and ask you “How can I help with flight 1234 tomorrow?” It’s really cool stuff – because the result is so seamless, the communications almost disappears”

What is your favorite emoji?

Jeff’s Answer:

“It was the first emoji sent with Twilio via SMS during our testing. I’m pretty sure it’s still baked into our unit tests somewhere.”

What was your proudest moment so far at Twilio?

Jeff’s Answer: Bring Dave McClure Into Mitch Kapor’s Office

“Proudest? One of the people I spoke w/ in that early seed round was Mitch Kapor. He declined to invest, and advised me to get somebody who can help with “Go to Market” – at the time, I didn’t know what that even meant – so I asked him who, by name, I should get. He said “Dave McClure.” I went out, recruited Dave as an advisor, then got him to actually invest. So six months later, I marched back into Mitch’s office, brought Dave with me, and said: “I did what you said. Here’s Dave, will you invest now?” He did. That felt good. ?”

For more on emojis, bears, the future of communications, and the history of Twilio, read Jeff’s full Q&A here