Hardware Podcasts

Twilio: Jeff Lawson

How I Built This · 3 Apr 2023 · 1h 14m

What this episode covers

Jeff Lawson, founder and CEO of Twilio, recounts his journey from dropping out of college to build Varsity.com, through the dot-com crash and a failed extreme sports retail venture, to co-founding Twilio in 2008. He explains how his frustration with complex telecom infrastructure at Amazon AWS led to the idea of a developer-friendly communications platform, which gained traction with early customers like Uber and Sony Music despite initial investor skepticism. Lawson details Twilio's growth strategy, including guerrilla marketing at hackathons, the challenges of managing a major client like Uber, and his perspective on remote work and the current tech industry cycle.

Most relevant to

founders before launch and companies scaling up

Topics

Mentioned

Companies
Twilio, Uber, Sony Music, Amazon Web Services, Cisco, Varsity.com, CollegeClub.com, DoubleClick, 9 Star, Taco Bell

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