Your Tutor Is One Call Away: Help Hub Connects Students and Tutors Via Twilio Voice

Miguel KudryAt 14 years old, Miguel Kudry (pictured right) started building apps. Now at age 20, he’s launched his second company, Help Hub, a new social platform that connects students with tutors via Twilio Voice.

I can’t exactly picture Miguel needing a tutor for “Computer Science 101” or “Introduction to Business Administration”. While a full time student pursuing a degree in business, Miguel is running Help Hub to give students a new avenue for mentorship and academic help.

Using HelpHub, students can search for the subject they need help with, pick from tutors who are experts in that area, and schedule a call. Miguel’s goal is to make tutoring as easy and accessible as possible. We talked with Miguel about launching HelpHub, how he got started coding, and how students have responded to the service.

What inspired you to found HelpHub?

I’m a college student and have been in need of tutoring personally. I’ve found myself needing help when I couldn’t schedule a meeting with someone, or need help from someone with experience in my course or subject. Tutoring has always been there for students, but immediate and really accessible help hasn’t. That’s what students really need.

What’s your background in web entrepreneurship and tutoring?

I’ve been a web developer since I was 14. I’ve developed several web apps and side projects during the past couple years, and launched my first startup last year. HelpHub is my second startup, I launched it in early February this year. I really don’t have any particular experience with tutoring, I just had the need and couldn’t have access to it.

How are you using Twilio?

HelpHub connects calls, verifies accounts, manages our rating system, and will soon start ranking tutors with Twilio. All tutoring calls are created through Twilio, so that’s how we use it the most.

Help HubHow has user feedback been for tutors and the students they’re helping?

As of a couple weeks ago we’ve started to convert an average of 10 tutors a day from Lower Mainland schools. We’re starting to get more organic traffic every day, and our user base is growing.

What’s next for you?

I look forward to seeing what features Twilio will be launching in the near future! We are focused on creating the most efficient way for students to get help when they really need it, and Twilio has and I’m sure will continue to help us build great solutions and products for them.

Learn more about HelpHub by visiting their website here.

Posted by Kyle Kelly-Yahner on May 1, 2013 Tagged , , ,

Customer Service Solutions with Twilio: Build Your Call Center Your Way

blog-image-call-center

Throughout the years, we have identified that many of our customers are using us to power their customer service needs. Today, we are very excited to formally introduce Twilio for the call center market.

Twilio gives you all of the building blocks needed to create a full-featured inbound or outbound call center. With these tools, you can create voice experiences that go above and beyond what is currently possible: making it simple and elegant to integrate call center functionality into your business applications.

Traditional call center solutions take a one-size-fits-all approach, requiring you to invest in costly and time-intensive processes and consulting services to inch you closer to the call center you need. With Twilio, build the exact call center you want, on your own terms.

Use Twilio to easily:

  • create a new call center from the group up

  • add new capabilities or capacity to your existing call center

  • migrate to a cloud-based call center

To learn more, please visit: twilio.com/solutions/call-centers

Posted by twilio on Tagged , ,

Seattle Hacks – Using Github Pages and Jekyll To Finally Create The Noiseless Hacker Calendar

Seattle HacksAfter about a year of working for Twilio as a Developer Evangelist in Seattle, I was still having trouble answering simple, recurring questions:

  • What are the best developer meetups in Seattle?
  • Are there any cool hackathons or conferences coming up?
  • Why do developers love bacon so much?

These are questions asked by developers and should be answered by developers. So some friends and I got together and created Seattle Hacks, an open source, community powered event calendar and information resource for developers in Seattle.

However, there was a massive problem with using an off-the-shelf CMS, blog or wiki tool that I was worried about: SPAM. Every time someone tries to make a dev calendar, it gets completely overrun with recruiters, pay-to-play events, and other crap hackers could care less about. Any site that allows the general public to make contributions will attract spam at a rate that is proportional to that site’s influence and traffic. You can moderate content, but that doesn’t scale well as the site grows.

We ended up using a combination of free (as in beer) services and free (as in liberty) software to solve for this. Let’s walk through the process of contributing content to Seattle Hacks and discuss the technologies involved.

GitHub Pages Powered Website

All of the files that comprise the Seattle Hacks website are stored in a repo on Github. Github provides free website hosting through their Pages product. All a developer needs to do is place their files in a branch called “gh-pages” and GitHub will make those files available as a website. By default Github will provide them with a domain for their site (i.e. username.github.io/repo) but they can configure GitHub to use a custom domain.

This is the first step to ensure that only developers are posting content to the site.
Anyone who has a Github account can fork this repo and submit a pull request to update the content of this website. While this is easy enough to do for a developer, it is quite difficult for a non-developer.

Jekyll Powered Blog

In addition to fairly static content on the site (such as a list of meetups in Seattle) there is a blog powered by Jekyll. Jekyll is a static blog generator written in Ruby. Static blog generators have two huge benefits compared to tools like WordPress:

  • They are secure (no applying security patches to static HTML!)
  • They are fast (since you’re just serving static files)

Normally, you would have your blog files on your local machine, run Jekyll locally and then push the generated files up to a web host. Since the author of Jekyll also happens to be one of the co-founders of Github, Jekyll is built-in to GitHub. Publishing a new post is as simple as composing a properly named markdown file, placing it in the _posts directory and sending a pull request. GitHub will automatically run Jekyll on the repo following a commit and regenerate the entire site. This is the second step in curating content. Files needs to be named properly, placed in the correct directory and contain valid meta-data and markup. Once again, trivial for a developer, but very challenging for anyone else.

Github Webhooks

When a post goes out, it will also be automatically tweeted by @SeattleHacks. This is accomplished using a Github webhook. Webhooks are great because they let you register a URL that we will receive an HTTP request anytime an event happens, in this case a push to our repo.

Our webhook service is written in Ruby and uses the Sinatra micro web framework. Once the service is deployed, go to the “Settings” tab for your repo and paste the URL to your service into the WebHook URLs list.

Enter

JSON powered calendar of events

If a blog post is about an upcoming event, you can simply add some meta-tags to your blog post and the event will be added to an automatically re-generated JSON file. This JSON file functions as an API for the calendar page. This allows us to deal with the shortcoming of vanilla Jekyll and the fact that GitHub Pages does not support custom plugins.

In addition to a webpage, we also generate a properly formatted iCal file. This was slightly tricky for me as the documentation for the iCal file format isn’t the easiest to understand, but I found an iCal validator that was very helpful in locating and fixing my bugs.

Powered by the Developer Community

Seattle Hacks is powered by the developer community and all pull requests are reviewed by the collaborators for the repo. This is the last step in ensuring the quality of the content being posted. The content of the site is only as good as the contributions from the community.

DeveloperCommunityThe software is MIT licensed. Feel free to fork and deploy in your own community!

Feel free to join the conversation on Hacker News.

Posted by Carter Rabasa on April 30, 2013 Tagged , , , , ,

Twilio Fund Europe Deadline Extended to May 6 – Apply Now

twiliofund-RGB-copyAhoy! We’ve extended the deadline for submissions to our 500 Startups backed micro fund, Twilio Fund Europe to May 6th 11:59 GMT. Building the future of communications isn’t easy, so we figured a few more days to work on your applications wouldn’t hurt. Apply via AngelList right here.

We’re looking for companies that are innovating communications products and creatively using the Twilio API. To be eligible for this current round of Twilio Fund, you must be based in the European Union and have a Twilio-powered product or company.

Here’s what Twilio Fund Europe Winners will receive.

  • Twilio Credit
  • Booth space at TwilioCon 2013 in San Francisco
  • Investment and benefits from 500 startups
  • Publicity support from Twilio PR and Marketing

For more information visit www.TwilioFund.com

Twilio Fund Alumni

Previous Twilio Fund Winners like OrderMapper and Talkdesk have gone on raise additional rounds of funding and expand their business. Read more about the most recent Twilio Fund 2012 winners here:

Twilio Fund Winner Profile: Wedgies

Twilio Fund Winner Profile: Babelverse

Interview with Sessions

We can’t wait to see what you build!

Posted by Kyle Kelly-Yahner on Tagged , , ,

CallTask Helps You Get The Most Out Of Your Call With Twilio

CallTaskLogoCEO Joel Gross built CallTask as a training tool for his sales team at Coalition Technologies. He used Twilio to record sales calls that his team could download and listen to when on-boarding a new salesperson. Pretty soon, CallTask was a lot more than a training tool. Joel built a CallTask dashboard, added call tracking and call mapping. Then Joel’s customers began using the service. Now, CallTask is a complete phone platform any business can use.

CallTask uses Twilio to record, map and track calls in one easy to use dashboard. “CallTask has been enormously helpful as it allows me to track all leads sent to Coalition Technologies so that I am able to know what marketing areas deserve more investment. It also helps me track salespeople so I can listen to calls and give good timely coaching advice,” says Joel.

CallTaskDashboard

Let’s say you’re a startup who wants to see if an ad promoting your sales hotline will spark any traffic. You can buy a Twilio-powered number from Call Task, put that number in the ad, and start tracking data.

When prospective customers see the ad and call your sales hotline, you can record those conversations, download an MP3 of the call, rate the customer’s satisfaction, and look up their previous call history. You can also see where the traffic is coming from, and use that data to measure your advertisement’s success. If a few of your salespeople getting a bulk of the calls, you can use CallTask’s mapping feature to forward calls to different team members. When you need to follow up you can use Twilio Client, to call that customer back right from your browser.

“At Coalition Technologies, we’ve logged over 85,000 minutes using CallTask,” says CEO and creator Joel Gross. Plans start out at $19 a month and scale as needed. They’re currently offering new customers a free trial plan with one number and 50 minutes of call time. Joel plans on implementing call queueing, conferencing, Twilio Client integration and features like voicemail and call transfers.

To learn more about CallTask visit their website here.

Posted by Kyle Kelly-Yahner on April 29, 2013 Tagged , , ,

Win an Atomic Getaway to Visit the Large Hadron Collider at CERN

CERNA team of the worlds brightest scientists from over 100 countries are working to simulate the Big Bang in a giant 17 mile long hadron collider, buried 574 feet below the earth. Why are they doing this? To prove the existence of the Higgs Boson particle which might just be the particle glue of the universe. This is CERN.

Sound awesome? It is and General Assembly, 3beards, Twilio and WAYN are offering you the chance to be a part of that awesomeness in person as part of their Accelera-tour.

The Accelera-tour

Enter General Assembly’s contest to win a trip to Geneva, Switzerland, the home of CERN’s Large Hadron Collider by May 3rd. To enter, just submit your email here. One winner will get:

  •  A tour of the Large Hadron Collider
  • Roundtrip airfare from anywhere in the UK or Germany
  • Two nights stay and transportation in Switzerland.

This contest follows the rules of the sub-atomic particle physics, meaning no two applicants can occupy the same place spot at the same time. Only one will win. Best of luck to everyone who applies!

For more information on the contest and rules of entry visit here

Posted by Kyle Kelly-Yahner on April 26, 2013 Tagged , , , , ,

Mobile Commons Connects Citizens to Senators with Twilio

Mobile Commons is giving citizens the communication tools they need to spark political action. They’re powering the communication technology behind Mayors Against Illegal Guns’ (MAIG) campaign to pass more comprehensive gun laws. Mobile Commons and MAIG’s joint effort called, Demand Action, allows citizens to contact their local senator’s office directly via Twilio.

When you call Demand Action’s Twilio number, you’ll be prompted with talking points for your senator’s office in addition to information you need to show your support. Then you’ll hear the friendly Twilio voice alerting you that you’re being connected to your senator’s office.

As the Gun Control Reform Bill hit the floor of the Senate last week, Rachel Maddow featured Demand Action’s campaign on their programs.

Mobile Commons is also running a “MYVOICE” campaign with Tony Bennett, using SMS to connect citizens with senators. To learn more, check out their feature on Piers Morgan’s program below.

To learn more about Mayors Against Illegal Guns, visit their website here. To learn more about Mobile Commons, visit their website here.

Posted by Kyle Kelly-Yahner on April 25, 2013 Tagged , , , ,

HomeJoy Bringing Everyone Clean and Happy Homes, Powered by Twilio

Screen Shot 2013-04-10 at 5.55.11 PMWhen clutter inspires a startup, you get HomeJoy.

Founding a startup from your home can get messy. For Adora Cheung and her brother Aaron, the mess they accumulated while working on one startup actually inspired them to found another Homejoy (formerly Pathjoy).

After being frustrated with the mess at their home and office, Adora struggled to find an easy cleaning service that worked with her schedule. After a fruitless search, she decided to build the solution herself–HomeJoy.

Homejoy is an on demand cleaning service that connects professional cleaners with clients. After completing Y Combinator’s summer program in 2010, they’ve grown their customer base and recently received 1.7 million seed funding and are expanding rapidly.

We talked with Adora about growing her team, how she uses Twilio to streamline HomeJoy’s communications for both customers and the professional cleaner, and getting off the ground in other states.

How did HomeJoy  get started and how have things changed after your seed funding?

We were spending all our waking hours on our startup (completely different from homejoy) and our places would just get really messy. Finally Aaron (my co-founder) decided enough was enough and set out to hire a cleaner so we didn’t have to deal with it. But what was supposed to save us time became a long, drawn out process, including many phone calls, too high prices, among other obstacles. At the point we realized there was something wrong here. There are many hardworking professional cleaners and many people who want professional cleaning, but no efficient matching process. We decided to fix that.

Before seed funding, we were growing pretty quickly but we couldn’t afford to hire anybody so we were taking customer service calls, coding, interviewing/testing cleaners and sometimes cleaning houses ourselves all at once. We barely slept. But, even then, there’s only so much two people can do.

The point we decided to raise money was when we couldn’t take anymore credit cards out on our names. After raising, we were able to hire an amazing team to focus on areas of their expertise and our days feel much more organized. We still go just as fast, if not faster. Everyday is blast, and sometimes I literally pinch myself just to make sure I’m not dreaming.

How are you using Twilio?

Twilio is at the center of how we communicate with clients and cleaners. We leverage the SMS API the most. It’s how we notify everyone of appointments, issues and resolutions. We provide great phone support but a lot of people are on the go so it’s just better to use texts than call.

adoraandaaron

Pictured Above: Adora Cheung and Aaron Cheung. Image via Forbes

What other technologies are you using?

We’re built on Python/App Engine, which has evolved in the past couple of years very nicely. We have some data processing stuff on Ec2. Our setup is pretty typical — Stripe for payments, SendGrid for emails, etc.

What’s next for Homejoy?
We believe everyone deserves a happy home. One way we’re doing is to get as many people’s places cleaned as possible. We currently serve 9 metro areas: New York City, San Francisco, Chicago, Dallas, Los Angeles, San Diego, San Jose, Seattle, Washington, DC. If we’re not where you live yet, we’ll most likely be there really soon.

To learn more about Homejoy, visit their website here. Check out Adora and Aaron Cheung’s 30 under 30 profile in Forbes here.

Posted by Kyle Kelly-Yahner on April 24, 2013 Tagged , , , ,

RETZ Brings Telephony To The Theatre with Twilio

RetzTypically, the  telephone is the enemy of live theater. When someone’s phone rings in the middle of a climatic scene, it distracts the audience and disrupts the story. However, one U.K. based theatre troupe, RETZ, is encouraging audience members to use their phones during performances.

RETZ is using Twilio in their current production of Franz Kafka’s The Trial, to add another dimension to the story. Audience members can unlock a pre-recorded Twilio Voice message that builds on Kafka’s work.

We talked with Production Manager Rachel Butcher, of RETZ about Kafka’s The Trial, the role technology has in theatre, and RETZ’s work with Access All Areas.

What is RETZ and when did you get started?

RETZ is a community of theatre-makers dedicated to telling stories that cross traditional boundaries. We want to allow characters to exist in the real world and to play with mediums like the internet to allow stories to breathe on their own.

How are you using Twilio to communicate with the audience, or enhance their experience?

Our current production, The Trial maps Franz Kafka’s seminal story across East London’s nooks and crannies. We needed to develop a way in which to direct our audience members, who explore the production on their own, from one venue to the next. We recorded a 10 minute ‘on hold’ track which leads the audience member to the next section of the story. The Twilio phone call is built into the script and provides the audience member with a 10 minute section of the content for the show. Twilio is just one of the ways in which technology has enhanced our production and made this show possible.

RETZ

Rachel Butcher (far right) and her co-workers

Can you talk about you work with Access All Areas and giving adults with learning disabilities the opportunity to participate in theatre?

Access All Areas are a fantastic company based in Hoxton, East London, their members are all passionate and dedicated actors, with experience in TV and Theatre. We’ve been fans of their work for a while, and wanted to collaborate with them for The Trial. We worked out through discussions with their Directors Nick and Ciara, sections of the live and filmed parts of performance that we could partner on and in workshops and rehearsals have devised these sections together, and are really happy with the results.

Anything you’d like to add?

It’s been exciting being able to use twilio to facilitate 10 minutes of our performance, and many people have been excited by the possibilities it gives us to use a democratic technology (that everyone has!) to deliver a story to people. Phones are everywhere now, and we’ll continue to work with twilio to allow people to have adventures and discover stories everywhere!

Learn more about Retz here and find them on Twitter here

Posted by Kyle Kelly-Yahner on April 19, 2013 Tagged , , , ,