We saw a tweet this week from Greg Isenberg that really resonated: "A lot of agent startups should probably start as a daily text message, not a SaaS product." We've been saying some version of this for months.
Let's get into it.
The product manager who came up with this feature most definitely deserves a raise.
Just text us
Be honest, when was the last time a business asked you to download their app and you actually did it? If you're anything like us, that's usually where they lose you. You don't want another app. You don't want another login. You don't want another channel to manage if you don’t have to. But if that same business texted you? You'd probably read it within 30 seconds.
Are we lazy? Maybe. But it’s a bit more than that…
SMS has a 98% open rate. Email sits around 20%. 90% of texts are read within 3 minutes. Businesses spend thousands building apps that get downloaded and forgotten.
A text meets you where you already are. An app asks you to go somewhere new. And in a world where everyone's already drowning in tabs and tools, "go somewhere new" is a big ask. "Look at your phone" isn't.
We think technology products are going to look very different in the next few years. Maybe it's a text. Maybe it's a Slack message. Or maybe it lives inside the tools you're already using every day like ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini. Instead of downloading something new, the things you already have just get smarter and do more. Your daily go-to could become your everything tool. Not because it replaced all your other software, but because it became the single layer you actually interact with while it handles the rest in the background.
Greg put it perfectly: if the message is valuable enough, the interface can come later. We’ll put our spin on this and say the interface might already exist: it's your texts, your Slack, the Claude or ChatGPT window you already have open.
Stay curious,
Julia & Russell
