InTooch Lets You Easily Connect With New Contacts via Twilio SMS

InTooch Lets You Easily Connect With New Contacts via Twilio SMS

Co-founder and CEO Julien Salanon was working for AOL Europe when he decided on a whim to attend Mobile World Congress. When he arrived, he realized he’d forgotten his business cards and had no easy way to share his contact information. He ended up calling everyone he met in order to exchange numbers, and that’s when the idea for inTooch hit him. What if there was an app that could instantly share names, phone numbers, email addresses and social media handles? Salanon set out to build the simplest, most reliable means of real-time contact exchange.

Once Salanon and co-founder Sumit Bando had created inTooch, they needed a secure way to distribute the app. They had to find a trustworthy platform, so they turned to Twilio because of its excellent reputation.

Two developers integrated Twilio with inTooch’s Grail infrastructure within three days. At first, inTooch used both SMS providers simultaneously. Over time, the company decided to go with Twilio exclusively based on its proven reliability and ease of use.

When a customer downloads the inTooch app, they can either send an SMS to a Twilio server or receive a code via SMS to verify their phone number, which is their unique and secure identifier. In addition, when two people want to connect but only one person has the inTooch app, the user without inTooch will receive a text message directing them to a webpage where they can exchange contact information.

InTooch users have full control over the information they want to share and can configure the app to swap selected contact information and automatically make social media connections. “You don’t have to scramble to find a business card, google their Twitter handle or sort through Facebook names after meeting someone,” said Salanon. “It’s all taken care of by the app instantly in a couple button clicks.”

InTooch is also geo-tagged so you can easily access people you met in a particular city or event, making it an effective way to follow up later. The app also has a “social feature” that allows you to see which interests or friends you have in common.

As inTooch users make connections around the globe, they can count on Twilio’s industry-leading uptime and international reach. “We’ve never had any issues with Twilio’s service. It’s fast and it’s reliable,” said Salanon.

Ultimately, inTooch and Twilio are a good fit in terms of what they offer their customers, Salanon said. “Twilio is doing for us what we are doing for our users— providing a service that’s super simple and reliable.”