Wayne
Dedicating this one to the team.A couple of weeks back I planned on putting a post out on LinkedIn to mention how appreciative I am of my team. I didn’t. Partly because I don’t really post on socials and partly because I’m not one for public displays of affection.
And now today, I wish I’d done it.
Ahead of my 39+1 birthday, I came into the office to some really thoughtful gifts. I wasn’t expecting anything at all, and it only confirmed how grateful I should be to call these people Team Twilo.
And so, I’ve decided to scrap anything I had planned for this month’s update to dedicate my entry to the people who very much make Twilo what it is.
Andrew – He’s been a main stay during our growth over the past few years. Genuinely one of the most talented people I’ve worked with, and I hope I get to work with him for a long time.
Izzy – Has been a breath of fresh air since she joined us. Super organised, always smiling, and has freed up a lot of my time. The future of our marketing department.
Chris – One of the best designers I’ve worked with. Full of integrity, always wants to do the right thing, cares almost too much.
Matt – Has only been with us for a few weeks and has come from a broad marketing background. He’s committed to becoming a PPC specialist and is very thorough in his learning, making a great start.
Sayem – Honestly the politest person that has ever worked at Twilo. Always smiling, super polite, and will literally fight you to let him wash your mug. A true gent.
Michalis – Super positive, walks into the office wearing a big smile every morning. He always wants to improve. Amazing cook. The king of tzatziki.
Jen – Has been the biggest support throughout the growth of Twilo, from day one. Jen is Superwoman. The only person I know who works harder than I do, and she does it so much better.
Corey – Has been with us for just a couple of days at the time of writing and has already made a big effort to get to know his new colleagues.
I’ve always said that a business is only as good as the people in it, and this business is one of the best because of the people in it.
Enjoy hearing more from these amazing people below…
Jen
Right after Dubai, I took a little detour to Paris with my children to go up the Eiffel Tower which was on their ‘2024 bucket list!’ —a quick but memorable adventure. We then headed to Marsden for a family get-together and had a blast exploring the UK’s longest and deepest canal tunnel…not one for those with claustrophobia!
I also hosted a dinner in Birmingham for leaders from Rcapital’s portfolio companies. We dove into some meaningful conversations about making our workplaces more inclusive and diverse, with expert advice from an HR specialist. Plus, I’m preparing lots of content to help celebrate Rcapital’s 20th anniversary with some charity efforts and comms, including a chat with the founder about how it all began.
Here at Twilo, we’re gearing up for big things with our ‘Growth 40’ plans. We’ve filled all the roles we needed to strengthen our team. I also led a session on how important teamwork and a positive culture are for our success. It’s great to see everyone bringing their best to the table.
It’s been a packed month with plenty of progress and some fun along the way. I’m excited about what we’re building together and can’t wait to see what the next month brings.
Isabelle
With a blink of an eye, April is over.
It was my Mum’s 60th birthday, so April consisted of lots of surprises, including a Bottomless Brunch, and a birthday party filled with lots of family and friends. I’m not too sure how we all kept it a secret for so long?! But what I do know is that lots of food and alcohol was consumed in April, so I’m looking forward to a nice detox in May.
In work, there’s been an array of different projects that we’ve been working on; from LinkedIn Outreach projects, to creating new product guides for clients.
It was great to work with Wayne and Jen on some exciting projects for ‘Growth 40’. I feel very privileged to work alongside such business-minded marketeers, as I’m learning so much and I cannot wait to infuse this knowledge into future client work.
Wayne sends out regular business updates, and with the most recent one, it mentioned lots of new work in the pipeline, which is super exciting, and I cannot wait to get stuck in next month.
Chris
The joys of parenting.
Andrew
April 2024I’ve done some upgrades this month; I started on an OpenCart rebuild as well as upgrade an old Laravel application. For OpenCart, we are taking a very old e-commerce website built in a dated framework utilising XSL / XML for the templates. We are taking the website and rebuilding it for the latest version of OpenCart (4.0.2.3). The Laravel project has been upgraded from an old version of the framework and the PHP version has been updated to 8.3. This is an application for shed retailers, and it gives the ability to create quotes as well as customise sheds before production. We are now ready for the next steps of this application to make it better and more suited to purpose.
In the last week of the month, I spent the weekend in Nuneaton for a pub and board games night. We headed out to the pub on the Saturday evening to get some good grub for a cheap price thanks to the vouchers my friend had saved up. We also had some “two for one” deals on the beers which is always great. After getting back, we spent the rest of the night, including early hours in the morning, playing games such as the Fallout board game.
Before the month closes, I’m going to see a mortgage advisor which will hopefully be our first steps into buying our first home. We’ve got all the documents together and will put through a mortgage in principle. The plan is then to start looking during May to get a feel of what homes we would like to go for.
Michael
End of April Blog
Creative Supercharge
April has been a month full of fresh creative challenges and exciting briefs. First and foremost, I have had the unique opportunity to work with Happy Little Moments: a brand identity project for a wedding events’ decoration company. Stating that this project has been refreshing will be an understatement. Putting aside the fact that I have never worked for a wedding-related IP before, I had the chance to challenge creative boundaries, and to explore new avenues of crafting brand identities. The challenge here has been the creation of an original design voice in an already bloated market – wedding events market is one of the most crowded and over-branded markets.
Another great creative stride this month has been the strategic design refresh of British Made Interiors’ social media. This project has been the culmination of a month’s-worth of research and of trial-and-error endeavours to reshape the brand voice of our client, and to introduce aspects of minimalist design into the brand vocabulary. We are extremely proud of the end results, as the redesign reflects the values and market-share of our client.
Family, Walks and Star Trek
The last few weekends have been family-focused and I have spent copious time on crafting some lovely dinners – mainly Mediterranean dishes. In addition, since the days are longer now, I have taken the opportunity to get out more, this entailing long nature walks around Harrogate (weather permitted of course). Finally, since I’m a Trecky I have devoted some free time watching the 80’s Star Treck series. As a kid I have vivid memories of Captain Jean-Luc Picard!
Matt
A busy couple of weeks!
It’s been a very busy three weeks since I joined the Twilo team. I’ve learned a lot about our clients and already picked up some new skills. It has been great to discuss with Wayne and Izzy the KPIs for each client and how we can achieve them with our combined skills. I’ve already launched my first couple of Google Ads campaigns for clients, and I’m excited to create many more!
Outside of work, my sister recently returned home from four months of travelling around Asia, Australia, and New Zealand. I was lucky enough to visit her in Australia for a few weeks.
It’s great to have her back, and I’ve been able to help her with the hunt for a new job with a revamped CV and LinkedIn post.
It worked, as within two weeks of being home, she’s been snapped up! For my help, she’ll be treating me to arguably the best pizza in Leeds, Grumpy’s!
Sayem
Going back to the basics can lead to impressive results.
In my recent project, I had the opportunity to work on an e-commerce website, lovelayla.com.au. For this project, I chose to use jQuery, a fast, small, and feature-rich JavaScript library. It was a delight to work with jQuery as it made things like HTML document traversal and manipulation, event handling, and animation much simpler. The ease of coding that jQuery provided was truly commendable. However, I noticed that while jQuery was convenient, it wasn’t the fastest option out there.
As a developer who is comfortable with JavaScript, I decided to leverage this for my ongoing project – creating a modern, feature-rich calendar for ‘Bondville Model Village’. Using pure JavaScript allowed me to have more control over the performance aspects of the project. The experience was different, but it was rewarding to see how much more I could optimize the performance when I was working directly with JavaScript. The calendar turned out to be efficient and met all the requirements, proving that sometimes, going back to the basics can lead to impressive results.
