Hacker News: garygao

New comment by garygao in "Launch HN: Chert (YC P26) – Twilio for iMessage"

garygao — Mon, 25 May 2026 18:10:24 +0000

Our goal behind this is to make it easier for people to conversationally interact with agents when they want to. Use cases like customer service or form-fill text backs would fit this. People are already getting SMS/RCS conversations in their iMessage inbox. We're simply making those conversations feel more human, conversational, and natural.

New comment by garygao in "Launch HN: Chert (YC P26) – Twilio for iMessage"

garygao — Mon, 25 May 2026 18:04:22 +0000

We're clear on what we want to do and the future we are building towards, which is an agentic future where agents can better assist and interact with humans on a more emotional and personal level.

New comment by garygao in "Launch HN: Chert (YC P26) – Twilio for iMessage"

garygao — Mon, 25 May 2026 18:02:46 +0000

SMS/RCS is better for some use cases (e.g. transactional messaging, promotions, or order updates) while iMessage is better for others (e.g. customer service). iMessage is better for these use cases because it feels more natural to the users texting the number

New comment by garygao in "Launch HN: Chert (YC P26) – Twilio for iMessage"

garygao — Mon, 25 May 2026 18:00:24 +0000

Yes, I agree, which is why we try to make the opt-in clear. Use cases like form-fill text back or cart abandonment after the user has opted in and noted down their number are what we primarily focus on

New comment by garygao in "Launch HN: Chert (YC P26) – Twilio for iMessage"

garygao — Mon, 25 May 2026 17:58:32 +0000

We are solving a real user pain point and not promoting spam. Users want a more conversational interface when they're reaching out for customer support during off hours and businesses want a better medium to talk to their customers. There is value created on both sides. There is no reason for Apple to ban us.

New comment by garygao in "Launch HN: Chert (YC P26) – Twilio for iMessage"

garygao — Mon, 25 May 2026 17:57:26 +0000

We do run checkups and keep very closely in touch with our customers. We don't plan to go self serve in the near future and will most likely still have a very personalized onboarding process.

New comment by garygao in "Launch HN: Chert (YC P26) – Twilio for iMessage"

garygao — Mon, 25 May 2026 17:08:27 +0000

iMessage for business has a very long and restrictive registration process, gray bubbles instead of blue bubbles, and is inbound only. We're democratizing iMessage for businesses that have good intentions on helping their customers more but can't afford to go through the long approval process.

New comment by garygao in "Launch HN: Chert (YC P26) – Twilio for iMessage"

garygao — Mon, 25 May 2026 16:52:44 +0000

iMessage is more conversational because it's what most people are used to using and seeing. People generally associate green bubble messages with spam/transactional messaging and blue bubble with trust. Additionally, iMessage also has additional features such as typing indicators and reactions (likes and loves) that makes the interface feel more conversational. WhatsApp could also be very conversational, but most people in the US use iMessage.

New comment by garygao in "Launch HN: Chert (YC P26) – Twilio for iMessage"

garygao — Mon, 25 May 2026 16:50:52 +0000

For prospective customers, we would most likely try to work with them to brainstorm use cases that are consent-based and non-spam. For current customers, if we do see that they're using our services for spam, we'll reach out to them asap.

Also, while we can't see the exact messages that our customers are sending due to encryption on our servers, we do know when a phone line is close to being banned from our health checks. When that happens, we'll reach out to our customers asap and learn more about what is going on.

New comment by garygao in "Launch HN: Chert (YC P26) – Twilio for iMessage"

garygao — Mon, 25 May 2026 16:48:31 +0000

We're working to bridge the interaction between humans and bots so that automated conversations feel more natural and comfortable for the end user. In circumstances where the user can't reach an actual human (e.g. off hours support), they're often faced with bots over SMS/RCS that feel non-conversational and therefore can't support them in the right way due to interface. We're working on building agents that can more comfortably interact with users during those situations.

New comment by garygao in "Launch HN: Chert (YC P26) – Twilio for iMessage"

garygao — Mon, 25 May 2026 16:43:07 +0000

We're helping to support conversational customer support agents that can help users better during off-hours and scheduling assistants that can interact with and understand user requests better than current models over SMS/RCS. This is definitely not just spam but instead the future of conversational 2-way messaging.

New comment by garygao in "Launch HN: Chert (YC P26) – Twilio for iMessage"

garygao — Mon, 25 May 2026 16:39:22 +0000

I agree. We're not completely self-serve right now, so we get to talk with each potential customer and learn about their use case before onboarding them onto the platform. This way, we can prevent use cases that involve spam or abuse.

New comment by garygao in "Launch HN: Chert (YC P26) – Twilio for iMessage"

garygao — Mon, 25 May 2026 16:34:04 +0000

Thanks for the suggestion! Yes, the setup process is extremely long and requires a lot of documents from the side of the business haha. It's definitely one of our goals to create the Vercel for iMessage for Business. Also, for the iMessage app payloads, that's an awesome suggestion! We can work on building that.

New comment by garygao in "Launch HN: Chert (YC P26) – Twilio for iMessage"

garygao — Mon, 25 May 2026 16:32:19 +0000

The $98 dedicated line is inbound only. A lot of our application comes in the form of warm, consented outbound.

New comment by garygao in "Launch HN: Chert (YC P26) – Twilio for iMessage"

garygao — Mon, 25 May 2026 16:21:48 +0000

We are not "disseminating unwanted messages". A lot of what we're doing (e.g. customer support or missed call text back) would be things that users would already be doing conversationally over iMessage.

New comment by garygao in "Launch HN: Chert (YC P26) – Twilio for iMessage"

garygao — Mon, 25 May 2026 16:17:25 +0000

We have SMS/RCS fallback for non-iMessage devices. Also, in the verticals that we're targeting, the iMessage usage rate is a lot higher than 50%

New comment by garygao in "Launch HN: Chert (YC P26) – Twilio for iMessage"

garygao — Mon, 25 May 2026 16:15:49 +0000

That's why we're making sure that all of the use cases are non-spam and also of high importance to the user. As we've seen through our customers, an after-hour customer support agent for their apartment, as an example, could be a contact of high importance for the user and definitely not spam in their iMessage

New comment by garygao in "Launch HN: Chert (YC P26) – Twilio for iMessage"

garygao — Mon, 25 May 2026 16:12:55 +0000

We work with our customers to make those messages consent-based and feel non-spam.

New comment by garygao in "Launch HN: Chert (YC P26) – Twilio for iMessage"

garygao — Mon, 25 May 2026 16:10:57 +0000

People don't report our phone lines to be spam because the use cases that we focus on are either mostly inbound (e.g. customer service, the user is the one who texts first) or warm opt-in outbound (e.g. form-fill text back or follow ups). Businesses want a better medium to communicate with their users and users want something more conversational and native to their messaging behaviors.

New comment by garygao in "Launch HN: Chert (YC P26) – Twilio for iMessage"

garygao — Mon, 25 May 2026 16:07:10 +0000

While Blooio and Sendblue are more focused on B2C agents and sales, we're more focused on 2-way conversational business use cases such as customer service that require scale and stability.