Before Signal: Lessons from Twilio’s Launch Masters

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  Dana OshiroPart-time Partner
  Heavybit

At Heavybit, we aim to connect our member companies with mentors and advisors who understand developer startups. Perhaps one of the strongest examples of a great developer-focused organization is Twilio. Launched in 2007, the company has more than 560,000 active users with very little traditional marketing dollars spent.

At this week’s Signal Conference, the company gained incredible buzz with the launch of a number of new products including video, IP messaging and two-factor authentication. With incredible traction and new investment the company is believed to have joined the ranks of what others are calling unicorns. But before all the funding, user traction and PR — this was a team of scrappy evangelists, field marketers and content experts. This post revisits some of the lessons we’ve seen from Twilio’s launch masters.

Danielle Morrill – Developer Content Marketing

Danielle Morrill first joined Twilio in March 2009 as Director of Marketing and first employee, with the mandate to acquire customers and build the developer community. She grew Twilio’s community from a few hundred to more than 100,000 developers and changed the way developer evangelism is done with a distributed international team. Previously she served as Community Manager at Pelago. Danielle is currently co-founder & CEO of Mattermark, providing analysis and insight on startups from around the world. In this Heavybit Speaker Series video, she tells developer companies exactly where to start with their content marketing strategy.

John Sheehan – Hero Making

John is an API fanatic with over 15 years of experience. At Twilio, John lead developer evangelism and worked as a Product Manager on Developer Experience. Then John was Platform Lead at IFTTT. Today, John is Co-founder and CEO of Runscope. In this Heavybit Speaker Series video, John talks about Hero Making in your community.

Meghan Murphy – ROI of Community

Meghan Murphy was Twilio’s Senior Manager of Community Programs where she led the community team and drove strategy on defending, nurturing and inspiring developers. She also managed Twilio.org, the social initiative that empowers nonprofits with communications technologies. Today, Meghan runs Marketing at HandUp. In this Heavybit Speaker Series video, Meghan talks about the ROI of Community at developer companies.