Twilio Startup Labs Founder Spotlight: Erwan Baynaud & Franck Sousa, Alobees

Twilio Startup Labs Founder Spotlight: Erwan Baynaud & Franck Sousa, Alobees

Company Name: Alobees
Founder Name(s): Erwan Baynaud & Franck Sousa
LinkedIn: Alobees Company Page
Industry: Tech, Construction
Stage/Funding: Seed
Location: Paris, France

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 Erwan Baynaud & Franck Sousa on their startup, Alobees. 

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

Alobees is a mobile application for construction site monitoring. Simple, easy, and intuitive, you can find all your site monitoring information on your smartphone.

Why did you start your company?

The story of Alobees began in 2017 when Erwan, a technology expert, crossed paths with Franck, the creator and manager of a parquet installation company. Franck was aiming to digitize his company for enhanced efficiency.

Together, they recognized that SMEs in the construction sector were yet to realize the potential of digital technology. This drove them to reimagine practices by developing a user-friendly application for construction site monitoring.

Alobees draws its essence from two professionals who have merged technical expertise with on-field experience, striving to revolutionize global construction sites in a sustainable and positive manner.

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

We use Twilio to send SMS messages during the registration process on our platform, as well as when one user invites another. Additionally, we make use of the 'verify' features to validate phone numbers.

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

Efficient and prompt registration is essential for our business. Given that our end users primarily possess mobile phones instead of emails, Twilio's quick and seamless phone number verification is invaluable. While Twilio handles this process, we can focus on developing new features.

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

Registration has historically been a cumbersome experience. In today's fast-paced world, businesses strive to simplify and expedite this process. With Alobees, our customers can complete registration in under a minute, leaving them with more time to enjoy our app!

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

We are enthusiastic about integrating email and voice notifications to enhance the overall customer experience.

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

Absolutely, we've had an enriching experience exploring various features. While we have not utilized all of them yet, they have sparked innovative ideas. We were also provided with free credits to further our development on Twilio. Thank you for the opportunity, and great job, team!

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

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

Begin by defining a user-centered use case and plan for smooth integration within your technology stack. Prioritize security, gather user feedback for iterative improvements, and leverage Twilio's resources to craft a valuable, well-branded communication solution!

What excites you most about being a founder?

Our team! Their unwavering dedication motivates us to progress collectively in the right direction. Seeing the team and customers delighted by the development and use of Alobees is our ultimate source of gratitude!

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.