13 ms·

Launch HN: Chert (YC P26) – Twilio for iMessage

62 points by garygao 5mo ago

Hey HN! We’re Gary and Ian, and we’re building Chert (https://www.trychert.com/ https://www.trychert.com/), an API for businesses to send, receive, and automate iMessage conversations at scale. Check out our demo: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SRdwvVxMMoI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SRdwvVxMMoI. We originally started by building products on top of iMessage because the blue bubble interface, typing indicators, and reactions made agentic conversations feel more human than ones on SMS/RCS. These included a one-shot iMessage agent builder that reached 2,000 users in one week and an automated iMessage outbound sequencer that sent thousands of outbound messages per day. The hard part is that iMessage does not have a native API like SMS/RCS. Sending and receiving iMessages requires a separate infrastructure that is difficult to set up and maintain, especially at scale. As we talked to more companies, we realized that the highest-volume use cases for iMessage were not B2C agents or even sales. They were things like customer service, missed-call text-back, cart abandonment, and inbound lead capture in verticals like home services, DTC brands, and property management that drive the highest volume. Furthermore, these companies often need additional support, such as custom infrastructure setup (e.g. contact card, area code, or local worker sessions), integration support with their existing SMS/RCS or voice agent systems, and a reliable way to scale their volume over time. We built Chert to be an infrastructure layer for businesses to handle iMessage conversations at scale. Businesses can use our API to send and receive iMessages programmatically, route replies to humans or agents, and integrate conversations into the systems they already use. To maintain stability across both outbound and inbound use cases, we built phone line health checks and SMS/RCS fallback systems. We also integrate with existing SMS/RCS systems, voice agents, CRMs such as Salesforce, HubSpot, and Attio, and tools like Slack. Finally, we let businesses reliably scale from a few test lines to hundreds of lines with automated line provisioning and a usage-based pricing structure. We’re working with companies doing conversational messaging in DTC, sports programs, property management, and home services at the scale of hundreds of lines. We’d love to hear your thoughts on this and other similar verticals where iMessage could be useful. All comments welcome!

SwellJoe 5mo ago
"Cold outbound"? So, spam?
huhrymuhry20000 5mo ago
I like the idea of explaining things like "<brand name> for <brand name>"
- garygao 5mo ago
  Thanks, it felt like the clearest way to describe it haha
tequila_shot 5mo ago
This is a very simple integration and the fallback is also pretty straightforward to implement technically. What’s the differentiator? Why would companies use your product?
- garygao 5mo ago
  I'd say mainly scale and stability. While people can definitely do this on their own through Bluebubbles or custom Applescript, stability is difficult to maintain, especially at scale. For most businesses, iMessage is not the core product they want to think about and maintain. They just want a reliable API and support/team to talk to so that they can reliably integrate it as a part of their existing business structure.
Calvin02 5mo ago
This doesn’t feel like something Apple would approve of. Are you concerned about them shutting this down?
- frumplestlatz 5mo ago
  This is definitely going to get banned, and as a customer of Apple’s, I will be glad for it. I don’t need more iMessage spam.
  - garygao 5mo ago
    We're not encouraging spam with this. We're mainly focused on existing conversational use cases that's currently done over SMS/RCS. They can be more human and expressive when done over iMessage.
    - dubcanada 5mo ago
      For iPhone only users, so right off the bat your product is targeting 50% ish of a companies customer base. And the non iMessage people get a worse experience?
      - garygao 5mo ago
        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%
      - allthetime 5mo ago
        In North America iPhone/android split is far from 50/50. I have 4 different apps running and the split is about 80/20 and has been for a decade. Internationally android is used at a higher rate - but that is decreasing as lesser economies play catch up.
        dubcanada 5mo ago
        Not sure what bubble you live in, but that is incorrect. Maybe in California it's 80/20. Every single statistic globally is nearly 80/20% for android. There is a few rich markets and they may be 80/20 for Apple, but realistically Android wins every single time, no matter what market you look at. China/India are like 30-40% of the world, and they are both under 20% usage. Europe - 60/40% split for android US/Canada - 40/60% split for iPhone Even some of the higher countries are only 70/30% for iPhone. Ignoring that is fine if your target is rich North Americans. But you are still chopping off X% of customers.
littke 5mo ago
As much as I want to applaud your progress here, as a user I want transactional stuff to stay in my email inbox. My iMessage is already starting to become overwhelming from spam and apps — I want fewer messages not more.
- garygao 5mo ago
  Yeah I agree. Our goal behind this is not to clutter up people's iMessage inbox with more transactional messages. It's to replace the SMS/RCS conversations that people are already having with customer service and scheduling agents with something more conversational and human.
  - frumplestlatz 5mo ago
    My existence couldn’t possibly be any more digital, and I can’t remember a single time I’ve had a SMS/RCS conversation with customer service or a scheduling agent. I don’t want to have one either. My message inbox is already full enough. My iMessages are for conversations with people that I actually want to talk to. The notifications are high priority because it’s with people that I want to talk to. I can’t imagine my annoyance if I were to receive an iMessage notification while I’m expecting an important message, only to find that it’s more spam. My email inbox is already a wasteland because of this. The absolute last thing I need or want is for the same thing to happen to iMessage.
    - garygao 5mo ago
      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
  - PantaloonFlames 5mo ago
    Why is iMessage "more conversational" than RCS? and "more human"?? I don't get the distinction you're making. I'm not an expert in mobile messaging so maybe I am missing something obvious. And what about WhatsApp?
xena 5mo ago
What is your plan to prevent spam from bad actors? How do you ban bad actors so they can't spam again? Does a user have to initiate contact in order to have messages sent to them?
- garygao 5mo ago
  1. Since we're not fully self-serve right now, we can choose to only partner with businesses with use cases that are opt-in and non-spam. 2. If we find that one of our customers is using this for spam, we'll reach out to them asap and determine next steps 3. Not necessarily. We support both inbound (user texts the phone line first) and opt-in outbound (we text the user first) use cases
  - dgellow 5mo ago
    And what would be the next steps? Would you block them from using your services, even if they are paying customers? Do you have agreements in place with your users to cover those situations? Is there a way for end users to report to you what they see as spam or unsolicited content? How do you monitor customers activity to determine if they are bad actors? You should have answers for those points if you want to build trust with end users
    - garygao 5mo ago
      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.
  - xena 5mo ago
    How do I as an iOS user permanently opt-out of your services before I get spammed to death with them?
arrsingh 5mo ago
How does this work? Do you have an agreement with Apple to connect to their iMessage service? If you do then kudos thats a real differentiator. However if you're hosting your own mac mini farm and running bluebubbles or other such things that are not approved by Apple what is your plan to handle the case where you're sending enough traffic through Apple's services that they disable / ban / block you? If its the former then awesome but if its the latter then Im not sure I'd want to depend on your service knowing that apple could ban you at any time.
- garygao 5mo ago
  Apple wouldn't ban us since we're not doing anything that would qualify as spam or abuse. Even if that hypothetical event does happen, we have SMS/RCS fallback systems in place so no conversations get stopped or lost
  - wewtyflakes 5mo ago
    Much of what you mention in your post seemed spammy; messaging regarding cart abandonment, etc. I aggressively label messages like that as spam, and I suspect others do too. I also suspect after blasting out messages like that, your accounts will get burned.
    - garygao 5mo ago
      We work with our customers to make those messages consent-based and feel non-spam.
      - deleted 5mo ago
        [deleted]
      - dgellow 5mo ago
        Could you elaborate? What does that mean in practice? So far what I’ve seen from your service seems to be yet another attempt at blurring the distinction between bots and human interactions, which is generally used for spammy content
dubcanada 5mo ago
How is this any different then https://blooio.com/ https://blooio.com/ https://www.sendblue.com/ https://www.sendblue.com/ https://www.lindy.ai/ https://www.lindy.ai/ etc? I will say I am the exact opposite of your market, I want absolutely nothing like this. In fact I'd prefer iMessage to allow ZERO programmatic interfacing.
- garygao 5mo ago
  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.
  - dave_xt 5mo ago
    Lol not true. Blooio also starts at $39 for shared and $98 for dedicated. Source: I'm the co-founder of blooio. https://blooio.com/ https://blooio.com/
    - garygao 5mo ago
      The $98 dedicated line is inbound only. A lot of our application comes in the form of warm, consented outbound.
      - dave_xt 5mo ago
        We have that too for $195/line for 6+ lines. We also have a full API you can find it here :) https://docs.blooio.com https://docs.blooio.com RCS fallbacks, Emoji reactions, typing indicators, even changing chat background
        liamcardenas 5mo ago
        do you support iMessage app payloads?
        5mo ago
npilk 5mo ago
Love chatting with an agent via iMessage for the right use case - it feels very natural and human. I hacked my own together with an old laptop and BlueBubbles. How would you compare your offering with Spectrum (https://photon.codes/ https://photon.codes/)?
smashah 5mo ago
It's good YC is funding you because it acts as a later of protection from legal threats by apple. Hopefully if/when Apple litigate this I hope you will fight and set precedent for commercialisation of adversarial interoperability (A digital human right). I suggest you implement Baileys also to your service so it can also be done with WhatsApp so we can accelerate the inevitable litigation.
- Yannaner 5mo ago
  We are def thinking a lot about interoperability and what it should look like in practice... >:)
  - frumplestlatz 5mo ago
    You’re about to tie your names and reputations to this. I would strongly reconsider pivoting unless you actually want to work for no-name companies and on the shady side of technology for at least the next decade.
frumplestlatz 5mo ago
> iMessage is intended for communicating with family and friends, and is not for conducting commercial activities or disseminating unwanted messages. iMessage misuse may result in service limitations. https://www.apple.com/legal/privacy/data/en/messages/ https://www.apple.com/legal/privacy/data/en/messages/ Seems pretty damn clear.
- garygao 5mo ago
  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.
  - deleted 5mo ago
    [deleted]
  - nvme0n1p1 5mo ago
    Are you "conducting commercial activities"?
    - antiframe 5mo ago
      Getting a spam message about an abandoned shopping cart item is clearly "commercial activities" to me.
  - icedchai 5mo ago
    You can't guarantee one of your customers isn't going to do that dissemination though, right? No spammer is going to sign up saying "I'm a spammer that just got banned from <other service>! Can you guys help?"
dgellow 5mo ago
> the blue bubble interface, typing indicators, and reactions made agentic conversations feel more human than ones on SMS/RCS Would you mind detailing your reasoning why agents should feel humans, when they very obviously aren’t? Why should we want AI to impersonate humans?
- Yannaner 5mo ago
  we don't think AI should by any means to pretend to be human, and we are not trying to hide that an agent is involved. What we mean is that conversation should feel natural and low-friction for the person receiving it. These interactions: blue bubble interface, typing indicators, and reactions will make it less like an automated SMS message and more like a normal messaging flow. We are trying to make agentic communication clear, useful, and native to channels people already use!
  - deleted 5mo ago
    [deleted]
  - trollbridge 5mo ago
    How is blue more human than green?
    - antiframe 5mo ago
      For me personally, if I saw an Agent sending me iMessages I would feel it's for the sole reason of deception. Every other company uses SMS and they feels right to me.
      - trollbridge 5mo ago
        Tap and hold -> Delete -> Delete and Report Spam.
liamcardenas 5mo ago
A few ideas for you guys: 1. Apple already supports iMessage for Business which is intended to cover the use cases you are targeting. But the set up process is ridiculous (for example: https://help.webexconnect.io/docs/wxcc-apple-messages-for-business https://help.webexconnect.io/docs/wxcc-apple-messages-for-bu...). It would be amazing to have "Vercel/Resend for iMessage for Business" 2. If you go the send blue route, please support iMessage app payloads. Send blue doesn't support that
- garygao 5mo ago
  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.
  - deleted 5mo ago
    [deleted]
- zerozerotwo 5mo ago
  The official api for iMessage is far richer than this and has things like forms, quick replies, various pickers, apps you can send in addition to text and images
- trollbridge 5mo ago
  Part of that is agreeing not to spam people and making it very clear you are legitimate business that is easy to contact.
the_arun 5mo ago
Assuming we have more customers using WhatsApp over iMessage, How did you decide to use iMessage over WhatsApp messaging?
- Yannaner 5mo ago
  we started with iMessage because it is still the most dominant, trusted channel in the US.
satvikpendem 5mo ago
Isn't this a direct violation of Apple's terms of service? You say you aren't spammy but at a certain point you will get banned. I'm not sure how YC funded this based on the platform risk alone but I guess these days they're throwing anything and everything at the wall.
- garygao 5mo ago
  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.
  - mh- 5mo ago
    I don't think anyone would be expressing the same level of concern if the conversations were only started/triggered by an inbound [to you] message. Commingling things like cart abandonment and (actual, user-initiated) conversational messaging dramatically increases the risk that Apple takes action, from my point of view.
    - garygao 5mo ago
      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
      - aetch 5mo ago
        No one ever “opts in” to nagging cart reminders just because they were forced to fill out a phone number to estimate shipping
  - dbbk 5mo ago
    I don't know why you're so insistent on trying to build a business on quicksand. Please just stop before you waste any more time or money on this.
kakuremi 5mo ago
[dead]
zerozerotwo 5mo ago
how is it possible to build this whole thing and not know there is a very rich first party api that does the same thing and more in iMessage https://www.apple.com/ios/business-chat/ https://www.apple.com/ios/business-chat/
- garygao 5mo ago
  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.
  - zerozerotwo 5mo ago
    Right gray bubbles and validated businesses for commercial and blue for people. Apple business chat is not inbound only. 100% of your features including the ability to redirect voice calls to iMessage are already offered by Apple via an api and its integrated into every major crm
  - jparsons67 5mo ago
    Apple Messages for Business does have requirements for their partner program, and they strictly enforce it, but would you really expect otherwise? I've talked to a few of their "MSP" partners, and it is true the process isn't as simple as integrating with an API. They do want you to fully support the entire feature set, and you have to prove it. How long it takes depends on your resources and commitment. It also isn't "inbound only," and does have a lot of features that iMessage doesn't. It's branded, without users having to download a contact card. No rate limits. Lots of advantages it seems. Saying you are "democratizing" iMessage is like saying you are "democratizing" bike lanes by selling car owners access to drive the bike lanes. That's not what it's for, you don't have the authority to do that, and it's going to get someone in trouble at some point.
chopete3 5mo ago
The ideas like this one are the rarest of the startup ideas you wish they don't become too successful as they are the target for exploitation by bad actors with ad dollars quickly. They won't be able to say no to the money.
- garygao 5mo ago
  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.
  - archonis 5mo ago
    Agents interacting with humans on an emotional level is manipulative. You've repeatedly stated that your goal is to make agentic conversations seem more human. This is deception that most people neither want nor need.
    - garygao 5mo ago
      We're not trying to be deceptive. In fact, whenever we deploy agents over iMessage, we make it very clear that they're speaking with an AI agent and that they can request human handoff if they want. The goal is to make conversations with AI agents feel more conversational and less automated.
landl0rd 5mo ago
I think this is bad and antisocial and you should shut it down. I like imessage because businesses cannot easily use it. The people who are most willing to pay for what you provide will do so because they can thereby annoy me in interfaces where other spammers cannot. More practically beeper got blocked for this reason despite not even targeting commercial messaging.
- treme 5mo ago
  I think they should probably ignore you and continue working on it seeing as they got accepted into YC.
  - ctoth 5mo ago
    Treme, on externalities: > I think they should probably ignore you and continue working on it seeing as they got accepted into YC.
  - mynameisvlad 5mo ago
    Being accepted into YC is not something that makes you or your idea invulnerable. https://ycgraveyard.iamwillwang.com/ https://ycgraveyard.iamwillwang.com/ https://startups.rip/ https://startups.rip/
    - zitterbewegung 5mo ago
      This is true but the point of YC is when that they will fund things that can fail it’s why VC exists .
  - rob 5mo ago
    YC seems a bit different from I remember it back in 2007 when I first joined. They're pushing things like "GStack" now. https://youtu.be/wkv2ifxPpF8?si=OHXgW92T_aZUbwpA https://youtu.be/wkv2ifxPpF8?si=OHXgW92T_aZUbwpA
- chatmasta 5mo ago
  iMessage has official business accounts. Although I’m not clear if that’s what this company is using.
hotstickyballs 5mo ago
Someone tag Apple in this thread and shut them down please
MuffinFlavored 5mo ago
This is a foothold business living entirely at Apple's discretion. edit: more research > Chert is in the Sendblue/Blooio lineage, which runs genuine Apple software on real Macs logged into real Apple IDs. They're almost certainly not doing "Beeper Plus again."
- dave_xt 5mo ago
  They are a photon + linq wrapper. Very surprised YC backed this actually
qwertyuiop_ 5mo ago
Why shouldn't Apple shut this down to prevent spam in order to defend the Apple customer experience.
- garygao 5mo ago
  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.
  - redwinbee 5mo ago
    I believe enough people have made it clear in this thread that Apple does already have reason to ban you. Whether or not you promote spam is not the issue, the issue is that Apple already has a feature built for this exact purpose; you can disagree with their approach—and maybe you’re right, I don’t know. But the idea that you won’t blocked by Apple for this is naïve.
  - smikhanov 5mo ago
    > real user pain point That is obvious from all the upvotes your comments get on here.
  - hnlmorg 5mo ago
    While I do actually believe you’re trying to solve a genuine frustration people have. I disagree with your opinion that Apple has no reason to ban you. Apple have always had a negative view on 3rd party APIs replicating their core OS functionality. And that’s exactly what you’re building here. You’re bypassing Apples approved process and selling those services. Even if you guarantee your customers wouldn’t abuse your service, it still defies Apples walled garden. So Apple will find an excuse to shut you down. It might be a “security” update that changes their API and thus breaks your compatibility. It might be the ToS point others have raised regarding commercial use. It might even just be something as vague as “we detected unusual activity from your account” bullshit. But Apple will close you down just like they did with every other service that bypassed their walled gardens. The only way you’d survive this is through lobbying. Like what Epic and others had to do. But there’s no way your startup would have the runway for an extended legal battle with Apple.
kneel25 5mo ago
So the business is to trick people into thinking they’re speaking with a real person and therefore save money on real support
morpheuskafka 5mo ago
> We rotate sending identities, warm them gradually, and cap volume per identity per day to stay well below the heuristics Apple uses to throttle abusive senders. Anyone promising \"unlimited blast\" volume is one ban away from disappearing. If you are violating Apple's policies, even if they cannot identify each account you create, can they not simply ban you as a legal entity from using their service, and then sue you for damages if you do so anyway? It's no different from getting a ban from Walmart for trying to sell stuff inside their store. > iMessage is intended for communicating with family and friends, and is not for conducting commercial activities or disseminating unwanted messages. iMessage misuse may result in service limitations.
- sparkling 5mo ago
  Regardless of the ToS violation... isn't this trivial to detect? Even if they keep the message volume low, detecting a swarm of accounts that are sending duplicate/similar messages seems rather trivial? The entire business model depends on Apple turning a blind eye, i'm quite amazed they got any VC money at all.
  - nikanj 5mo ago
    Last time an iMessage-for-everyone startup (Beeper Mini) made the news, they had gotten funding from Samsung. Might be something similar here
  - pryce 5mo ago
    > i'm quite amazed they got any VC money at all. probably VC bit at the 'agentic' part. Using that word makes some folk lose their minds, and they may then find themselves investing in a whole range of things that they otherwise wouldn't.
- sjtgraham 5mo ago
  [dead]
zitterbewegung 5mo ago
Why would I use this instead of using iMessage for Business that is the official way and is more robust and doesn’t violate ToS. If you get shut down I have to redo this setup using Apple ?
- garygao 5mo ago
  iMessage for Business is very restrictive and has a really long approval process. On top of this, it also sends gray bubbles and doesn't allow any outbound, which prevents consented outbound use cases such as form fill text back.
  - angulardragon03 5mo ago
    > also sends gray bubbles Incoming messages are _always_ gray on iOS, irrespective of the use of iMessage or SMS. Your solution is not any different in this regard.
    - smt88 5mo ago
      I’ve never seen a gray bubble and have received incoming messages from all different types of accounts
      - collinrapp 5mo ago
        Then there’s a misunderstanding here. I have an iPhone. When I open my Messages app and view a conversation with someone with an iPhone, my outbound messages are blue and their messages to me are gray. When I open a conversation with a non-iPhone user, my outbound messages are green and their messages to me are still gray. Are you sure you’ve never received a incoming gray message? Because that doesn’t seem possible, unless you’re talking about something other than what I and the person you responded to are talking about. As far as I can tell, the OP’s insistence that their service won’t send gray messages seems entirely disconnected from reality.
        5mo ago
plombe 5mo ago
AI slop
crsv 5mo ago
Hope this gets killed quickly with prejudice.
throwaway27727 5mo ago
Does the name come from the farsi word "chert"?
- Herodotus38 5mo ago
  I didn’t realize there was a farsi word chert. I was thinking it was named after my favorite cryptocrystalline silicate mineral.
  - Yannaner 5mo ago
    Indeed it is.
- Yannaner 5mo ago
  The name come from a material name when we were doing archaeology research!
moralestapia 5mo ago
Pricing anywhere?
wheelerwj 5mo ago
If this were legit then twilio would offer it already. People in messaging/b2c apps have been asking for it for a decade and the best weve managed is whatsapp. Kind of weirded out that this made it into YC.
TZubiri 5mo ago
Spam is an evergreen vertical
c0rruptbytes 5mo ago
Why use this over Twilio which works pretty hard to make sure you’re compliant (and supports iMessage for business)?
ada1981 5mo ago
How does this differ from LoopMessage? What is the cost?
systima 5mo ago
Is this allowed under Apple's ToS? I recall the Beeper Mini debacle not so long ago, and fear that this may be a house built on sand.
- garygao 5mo ago
  Apple is not necessarily against programmatic messaging. In fact, they actually developed Applescript for people to do so. Beeper was using it to replace the iMessage interface when it already exists, which is why I think Apple was against it. We're doing something fundamentally different - allowing agents to interact with humans on iMessage, which is something that the current iMessage interface cannot do.
  - hnlmorg 5mo ago
    Apple were against Beeper because it opened their platform to people who weren’t Apple-sanctioned users. Apple might have cited a different technical reason but that would only have been to avoid antitrust regulations. Unfortunately for you, this startup idea also allows non-sanctioned entities access to iMessage. So Apple will ban your access to.
akho 5mo ago
ты черт
sjtgraham 5mo ago
I'm surprised YC funded this — not because it's a bad idea, because it isn't. But because surely one of the first questions was: what happens when Apple decides to shut it down?
nikolay 5mo ago
"Chert" is a poor branding for all Russian [and Ukrainian customers - it means "crap" or "damn".
- kmbfjr 5mo ago
  Sony had a NAS device for video storage called the “Petafile”.
  - nikolay 5mo ago
    Oh, wow! Not that "PDF file" sounds any better, though.
- Yannaner 5mo ago
  We named it Chert because we were doing archaeology research.
  - nikolay 5mo ago
    That's fine, but never forget why Mitsubishi had to rebrand its famous Pajero SUV as the Montero in America and in Spanish-speaking countries [0]! [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mitsubishi_Pajero https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mitsubishi_Pajero
- _-_-__-_-_- 5mo ago
  better than "shart"... i guess
garygao 5mo ago
[dead]
BoorishBears 5mo ago
This finally put a nail in the coffin for my hope we'll ever get a Twilio for iMessage For me, Twilio for iMessage would mean a DX-first product, highly prototyping friendly, etc... When I was exploring options for a B2C app a while back SendBlue made me sit in a call with a sales person then wanted some 5 figure outlay to start stated... I'm finally accepting that because of the bootleg nature of programmatic iMessage, any company in the space has to be really aggressive with vetting, which in turn means replacing the "Get Your API Key" button with a "Call Us" button: which is the opposite of what Twillo was great at.
- jparsons67 5mo ago
  Well, there is this now from Twilio. They announced it at SIGNAL this month. https://www.twilio.com/en-us/messaging/channels/apple-messages-for-business https://www.twilio.com/en-us/messaging/channels/apple-messag...
  - BoorishBears 5mo ago
    Apple Messages for Business has been around for a while, but it's mostly for communicating with a corporation vs consumer products. And iOS presents it like a support chat instead of a normal conversation.
    - jparsons67 5mo ago
      They position it as "Apple user to business communication." They don't limit it to customer service/tech support. Bllie Eillish and the Haas F1 team just launched a fan experiences on it. Saw The Nudge is on it as well, which was a big upgrade from their old SMS experience.
      - BoorishBears 5mo ago
        You're trying to figure out what it is incrementally, and I'm telling you Apple Messages for Business is ancient news and isn't fit for the purpose described: https://www.apple.com/ios/business-chat/ https://www.apple.com/ios/business-chat/ The "experiences" are not normal 1:1 iMessage conversations. You're joining an outreach channel, and only large corporations (that includes whoever does distribution for Billie Eilish) qualify. Proper consumer apps like: - tomo.ai - poke.com - fractal.space Are all building on services that give you an actual iMessage phone number, and those are what I'd like to see actually offer self-serve one day, just like SMS. You don't need "SMS For Business" to send an SMS.
ajd555 5mo ago
Is it common in these Launch HNs to have a "Live on Hacker News" on the website banner. What does that mean? The link doesn't even point to this thread, but only the main page. Perhaps this is common, but I just don't get it
throw03172019 5mo ago
I feel bad that this launch post is being put down so hard but I unfortunately agree. I get enough text and call spam I can’t prevent even with reporting every single one of them.
kantodtech1 5mo ago
[dead]
TheAtomic 5mo ago
Please don't.
srigbok 5mo ago
[flagged]
jparsons67 5mo ago
Your business model is similar to setting up a lemonade stand on the railroad tracks. Nothing wrong with a lemonade stand, but putting it right in the path of oncoming trains seems unwise. All kidding aside, your business model relies on continuously violating Apple's terms of use with impunity. Your technical foundation is built on a service that was designed to prevent what you are doing, and you will be locked into a never ending cat and mouse game with them as they try to block you, and you create new IDs to recover. Even if your use cases aren't scams, you are using the same methods as scammers. Operators of messaging channels are under pressure from EU and other government regulators to stop unsolicited messages. The path you are relying on is only going to get more difficult. Maybe reconsider your path? If you want to be a provider of communication channel access to businesses, consider becoming a legitimate WhatsApp BSP, Apple Messages for Business MSP, etc. Work with the channel operators, not against them. That would be a much more stable foundation for your business.
rkrueger11 5mo ago
[flagged]
dzonga 5mo ago
if I can make a guess: these guys are running a massive e-sim farm that sits on top of a rest api. good luck - but for some of us we would rather stick to apple business
jparsons67 5mo ago
[dead]
kmbfjr 5mo ago
Cart abandonment. Good grief, any company that reaches out on that premise immediately loses my business on general principle. I may indeed have forgotten, changed my mind or found it cheaper elsewhere. Get over it. I walked out, chasing me into the parking lot is no way to get me to come back.
Nate4137 5mo ago
How are y'all building differently than Linq or SendBlue(also YC company)? I tried SendBlue but latency was too much (regularly 20+ seconds). Seems like they target Sales use cases. Ended up going w/ Linq, for the virtual boy/girl friend I'm building. Originally chose because the scaled players(Poke, Tomo, ditto) all use Linq, but pricing is for sure enterprise level haha. Would be open to trying y'all if your doing something different/better.

62 points by garygao 5mo ago

SwellJoe 5mo ago

"Cold outbound"? So, spam?

huhrymuhry20000 5mo ago

I like the idea of explaining things like "<brand name> for <brand name>"

garygao 5mo ago
Thanks, it felt like the clearest way to describe it haha

tequila_shot 5mo ago

This is a very simple integration and the fallback is also pretty straightforward to implement technically. What’s the differentiator? Why would companies use your product?

garygao 5mo ago
I'd say mainly scale and stability. While people can definitely do this on their own through Bluebubbles or custom Applescript, stability is difficult to maintain, especially at scale. For most businesses, iMessage is not the core product they want to think about and maintain. They just want a reliable API and support/team to talk to so that they can reliably integrate it as a part of their existing business structure.

Calvin02 5mo ago

This doesn’t feel like something Apple would approve of. Are you concerned about them shutting this down?

frumplestlatz 5mo ago
This is definitely going to get banned, and as a customer of Apple’s, I will be glad for it. I don’t need more iMessage spam.
- garygao 5mo ago
  We're not encouraging spam with this. We're mainly focused on existing conversational use cases that's currently done over SMS/RCS. They can be more human and expressive when done over iMessage.
  - dubcanada 5mo ago
    For iPhone only users, so right off the bat your product is targeting 50% ish of a companies customer base. And the non iMessage people get a worse experience?
    - garygao 5mo ago
      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%
    - allthetime 5mo ago
      In North America iPhone/android split is far from 50/50. I have 4 different apps running and the split is about 80/20 and has been for a decade. Internationally android is used at a higher rate - but that is decreasing as lesser economies play catch up.
      - dubcanada 5mo ago
        Not sure what bubble you live in, but that is incorrect. Maybe in California it's 80/20. Every single statistic globally is nearly 80/20% for android. There is a few rich markets and they may be 80/20 for Apple, but realistically Android wins every single time, no matter what market you look at. China/India are like 30-40% of the world, and they are both under 20% usage. Europe - 60/40% split for android US/Canada - 40/60% split for iPhone Even some of the higher countries are only 70/30% for iPhone. Ignoring that is fine if your target is rich North Americans. But you are still chopping off X% of customers.

littke 5mo ago

As much as I want to applaud your progress here, as a user I want transactional stuff to stay in my email inbox. My iMessage is already starting to become overwhelming from spam and apps — I want fewer messages not more.

garygao 5mo ago
Yeah I agree. Our goal behind this is not to clutter up people's iMessage inbox with more transactional messages. It's to replace the SMS/RCS conversations that people are already having with customer service and scheduling agents with something more conversational and human.
- frumplestlatz 5mo ago
  My existence couldn’t possibly be any more digital, and I can’t remember a single time I’ve had a SMS/RCS conversation with customer service or a scheduling agent. I don’t want to have one either. My message inbox is already full enough. My iMessages are for conversations with people that I actually want to talk to. The notifications are high priority because it’s with people that I want to talk to. I can’t imagine my annoyance if I were to receive an iMessage notification while I’m expecting an important message, only to find that it’s more spam. My email inbox is already a wasteland because of this. The absolute last thing I need or want is for the same thing to happen to iMessage.
  - garygao 5mo ago
    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
- PantaloonFlames 5mo ago
  Why is iMessage "more conversational" than RCS? and "more human"?? I don't get the distinction you're making. I'm not an expert in mobile messaging so maybe I am missing something obvious. And what about WhatsApp?

xena 5mo ago

What is your plan to prevent spam from bad actors? How do you ban bad actors so they can't spam again? Does a user have to initiate contact in order to have messages sent to them?

garygao 5mo ago
1. Since we're not fully self-serve right now, we can choose to only partner with businesses with use cases that are opt-in and non-spam. 2. If we find that one of our customers is using this for spam, we'll reach out to them asap and determine next steps 3. Not necessarily. We support both inbound (user texts the phone line first) and opt-in outbound (we text the user first) use cases
- dgellow 5mo ago
  And what would be the next steps? Would you block them from using your services, even if they are paying customers? Do you have agreements in place with your users to cover those situations? Is there a way for end users to report to you what they see as spam or unsolicited content? How do you monitor customers activity to determine if they are bad actors? You should have answers for those points if you want to build trust with end users
  - garygao 5mo ago
    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.
- xena 5mo ago
  How do I as an iOS user permanently opt-out of your services before I get spammed to death with them?

arrsingh 5mo ago

How does this work? Do you have an agreement with Apple to connect to their iMessage service? If you do then kudos thats a real differentiator. However if you're hosting your own mac mini farm and running bluebubbles or other such things that are not approved by Apple what is your plan to handle the case where you're sending enough traffic through Apple's services that they disable / ban / block you? If its the former then awesome but if its the latter then Im not sure I'd want to depend on your service knowing that apple could ban you at any time.

garygao 5mo ago
Apple wouldn't ban us since we're not doing anything that would qualify as spam or abuse. Even if that hypothetical event does happen, we have SMS/RCS fallback systems in place so no conversations get stopped or lost
- wewtyflakes 5mo ago
  Much of what you mention in your post seemed spammy; messaging regarding cart abandonment, etc. I aggressively label messages like that as spam, and I suspect others do too. I also suspect after blasting out messages like that, your accounts will get burned.
  - garygao 5mo ago
    We work with our customers to make those messages consent-based and feel non-spam.
    - deleted 5mo ago
      [deleted]
    - dgellow 5mo ago
      Could you elaborate? What does that mean in practice? So far what I’ve seen from your service seems to be yet another attempt at blurring the distinction between bots and human interactions, which is generally used for spammy content

dubcanada 5mo ago

How is this any different then https://blooio.com/ https://blooio.com/ https://www.sendblue.com/ https://www.sendblue.com/ https://www.lindy.ai/ https://www.lindy.ai/ etc? I will say I am the exact opposite of your market, I want absolutely nothing like this. In fact I'd prefer iMessage to allow ZERO programmatic interfacing.

garygao 5mo ago
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.
- dave_xt 5mo ago
  Lol not true. Blooio also starts at $39 for shared and $98 for dedicated. Source: I'm the co-founder of blooio. https://blooio.com/ https://blooio.com/
  - garygao 5mo ago
    The $98 dedicated line is inbound only. A lot of our application comes in the form of warm, consented outbound.
    - dave_xt 5mo ago
      We have that too for $195/line for 6+ lines. We also have a full API you can find it here :) https://docs.blooio.com https://docs.blooio.com RCS fallbacks, Emoji reactions, typing indicators, even changing chat background
      - liamcardenas 5mo ago
        do you support iMessage app payloads?
        5mo ago

npilk 5mo ago

Love chatting with an agent via iMessage for the right use case - it feels very natural and human. I hacked my own together with an old laptop and BlueBubbles. How would you compare your offering with Spectrum (https://photon.codes/ https://photon.codes/)?

smashah 5mo ago

It's good YC is funding you because it acts as a later of protection from legal threats by apple. Hopefully if/when Apple litigate this I hope you will fight and set precedent for commercialisation of adversarial interoperability (A digital human right). I suggest you implement Baileys also to your service so it can also be done with WhatsApp so we can accelerate the inevitable litigation.

Yannaner 5mo ago
We are def thinking a lot about interoperability and what it should look like in practice... >:)
- frumplestlatz 5mo ago
  You’re about to tie your names and reputations to this. I would strongly reconsider pivoting unless you actually want to work for no-name companies and on the shady side of technology for at least the next decade.

frumplestlatz 5mo ago

> iMessage is intended for communicating with family and friends, and is not for conducting commercial activities or disseminating unwanted messages. iMessage misuse may result in service limitations. https://www.apple.com/legal/privacy/data/en/messages/ https://www.apple.com/legal/privacy/data/en/messages/ Seems pretty damn clear.

garygao 5mo ago
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.
- deleted 5mo ago
  [deleted]
- nvme0n1p1 5mo ago
  Are you "conducting commercial activities"?
  - antiframe 5mo ago
    Getting a spam message about an abandoned shopping cart item is clearly "commercial activities" to me.
- icedchai 5mo ago
  You can't guarantee one of your customers isn't going to do that dissemination though, right? No spammer is going to sign up saying "I'm a spammer that just got banned from <other service>! Can you guys help?"

dgellow 5mo ago

> the blue bubble interface, typing indicators, and reactions made agentic conversations feel more human than ones on SMS/RCS Would you mind detailing your reasoning why agents should feel humans, when they very obviously aren’t? Why should we want AI to impersonate humans?

Yannaner 5mo ago
we don't think AI should by any means to pretend to be human, and we are not trying to hide that an agent is involved. What we mean is that conversation should feel natural and low-friction for the person receiving it. These interactions: blue bubble interface, typing indicators, and reactions will make it less like an automated SMS message and more like a normal messaging flow. We are trying to make agentic communication clear, useful, and native to channels people already use!
- deleted 5mo ago
  [deleted]
- trollbridge 5mo ago
  How is blue more human than green?
  - antiframe 5mo ago
    For me personally, if I saw an Agent sending me iMessages I would feel it's for the sole reason of deception. Every other company uses SMS and they feels right to me.
    - trollbridge 5mo ago
      Tap and hold -> Delete -> Delete and Report Spam.

liamcardenas 5mo ago

A few ideas for you guys: 1. Apple already supports iMessage for Business which is intended to cover the use cases you are targeting. But the set up process is ridiculous (for example: https://help.webexconnect.io/docs/wxcc-apple-messages-for-business https://help.webexconnect.io/docs/wxcc-apple-messages-for-bu...). It would be amazing to have "Vercel/Resend for iMessage for Business" 2. If you go the send blue route, please support iMessage app payloads. Send blue doesn't support that

garygao 5mo ago
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.
- deleted 5mo ago
  [deleted]
zerozerotwo 5mo ago
The official api for iMessage is far richer than this and has things like forms, quick replies, various pickers, apps you can send in addition to text and images
trollbridge 5mo ago
Part of that is agreeing not to spam people and making it very clear you are legitimate business that is easy to contact.

the_arun 5mo ago

Assuming we have more customers using WhatsApp over iMessage, How did you decide to use iMessage over WhatsApp messaging?

Yannaner 5mo ago
we started with iMessage because it is still the most dominant, trusted channel in the US.

satvikpendem 5mo ago

Isn't this a direct violation of Apple's terms of service? You say you aren't spammy but at a certain point you will get banned. I'm not sure how YC funded this based on the platform risk alone but I guess these days they're throwing anything and everything at the wall.

garygao 5mo ago
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.
- mh- 5mo ago
  I don't think anyone would be expressing the same level of concern if the conversations were only started/triggered by an inbound [to you] message. Commingling things like cart abandonment and (actual, user-initiated) conversational messaging dramatically increases the risk that Apple takes action, from my point of view.
  - garygao 5mo ago
    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
    - aetch 5mo ago
      No one ever “opts in” to nagging cart reminders just because they were forced to fill out a phone number to estimate shipping
- dbbk 5mo ago
  I don't know why you're so insistent on trying to build a business on quicksand. Please just stop before you waste any more time or money on this.

kakuremi 5mo ago

[dead]

zerozerotwo 5mo ago

how is it possible to build this whole thing and not know there is a very rich first party api that does the same thing and more in iMessage https://www.apple.com/ios/business-chat/ https://www.apple.com/ios/business-chat/

garygao 5mo ago
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.
- zerozerotwo 5mo ago
  Right gray bubbles and validated businesses for commercial and blue for people. Apple business chat is not inbound only. 100% of your features including the ability to redirect voice calls to iMessage are already offered by Apple via an api and its integrated into every major crm
- jparsons67 5mo ago
  Apple Messages for Business does have requirements for their partner program, and they strictly enforce it, but would you really expect otherwise? I've talked to a few of their "MSP" partners, and it is true the process isn't as simple as integrating with an API. They do want you to fully support the entire feature set, and you have to prove it. How long it takes depends on your resources and commitment. It also isn't "inbound only," and does have a lot of features that iMessage doesn't. It's branded, without users having to download a contact card. No rate limits. Lots of advantages it seems. Saying you are "democratizing" iMessage is like saying you are "democratizing" bike lanes by selling car owners access to drive the bike lanes. That's not what it's for, you don't have the authority to do that, and it's going to get someone in trouble at some point.

chopete3 5mo ago

The ideas like this one are the rarest of the startup ideas you wish they don't become too successful as they are the target for exploitation by bad actors with ad dollars quickly. They won't be able to say no to the money.

garygao 5mo ago
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.
- archonis 5mo ago
  Agents interacting with humans on an emotional level is manipulative. You've repeatedly stated that your goal is to make agentic conversations seem more human. This is deception that most people neither want nor need.
  - garygao 5mo ago
    We're not trying to be deceptive. In fact, whenever we deploy agents over iMessage, we make it very clear that they're speaking with an AI agent and that they can request human handoff if they want. The goal is to make conversations with AI agents feel more conversational and less automated.

landl0rd 5mo ago

I think this is bad and antisocial and you should shut it down. I like imessage because businesses cannot easily use it. The people who are most willing to pay for what you provide will do so because they can thereby annoy me in interfaces where other spammers cannot. More practically beeper got blocked for this reason despite not even targeting commercial messaging.

treme 5mo ago
I think they should probably ignore you and continue working on it seeing as they got accepted into YC.
- ctoth 5mo ago
  Treme, on externalities: > I think they should probably ignore you and continue working on it seeing as they got accepted into YC.
- mynameisvlad 5mo ago
  Being accepted into YC is not something that makes you or your idea invulnerable. https://ycgraveyard.iamwillwang.com/ https://ycgraveyard.iamwillwang.com/ https://startups.rip/ https://startups.rip/
  - zitterbewegung 5mo ago
    This is true but the point of YC is when that they will fund things that can fail it’s why VC exists .
- rob 5mo ago
  YC seems a bit different from I remember it back in 2007 when I first joined. They're pushing things like "GStack" now. https://youtu.be/wkv2ifxPpF8?si=OHXgW92T_aZUbwpA https://youtu.be/wkv2ifxPpF8?si=OHXgW92T_aZUbwpA
chatmasta 5mo ago
iMessage has official business accounts. Although I’m not clear if that’s what this company is using.

hotstickyballs 5mo ago

Someone tag Apple in this thread and shut them down please

MuffinFlavored 5mo ago

This is a foothold business living entirely at Apple's discretion. edit: more research > Chert is in the Sendblue/Blooio lineage, which runs genuine Apple software on real Macs logged into real Apple IDs. They're almost certainly not doing "Beeper Plus again."

dave_xt 5mo ago
They are a photon + linq wrapper. Very surprised YC backed this actually

qwertyuiop_ 5mo ago

Why shouldn't Apple shut this down to prevent spam in order to defend the Apple customer experience.

garygao 5mo ago
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.
- redwinbee 5mo ago
  I believe enough people have made it clear in this thread that Apple does already have reason to ban you. Whether or not you promote spam is not the issue, the issue is that Apple already has a feature built for this exact purpose; you can disagree with their approach—and maybe you’re right, I don’t know. But the idea that you won’t blocked by Apple for this is naïve.
- smikhanov 5mo ago
  > real user pain point That is obvious from all the upvotes your comments get on here.
- hnlmorg 5mo ago
  While I do actually believe you’re trying to solve a genuine frustration people have. I disagree with your opinion that Apple has no reason to ban you. Apple have always had a negative view on 3rd party APIs replicating their core OS functionality. And that’s exactly what you’re building here. You’re bypassing Apples approved process and selling those services. Even if you guarantee your customers wouldn’t abuse your service, it still defies Apples walled garden. So Apple will find an excuse to shut you down. It might be a “security” update that changes their API and thus breaks your compatibility. It might be the ToS point others have raised regarding commercial use. It might even just be something as vague as “we detected unusual activity from your account” bullshit. But Apple will close you down just like they did with every other service that bypassed their walled gardens. The only way you’d survive this is through lobbying. Like what Epic and others had to do. But there’s no way your startup would have the runway for an extended legal battle with Apple.

kneel25 5mo ago

So the business is to trick people into thinking they’re speaking with a real person and therefore save money on real support

morpheuskafka 5mo ago

> We rotate sending identities, warm them gradually, and cap volume per identity per day to stay well below the heuristics Apple uses to throttle abusive senders. Anyone promising \"unlimited blast\" volume is one ban away from disappearing. If you are violating Apple's policies, even if they cannot identify each account you create, can they not simply ban you as a legal entity from using their service, and then sue you for damages if you do so anyway? It's no different from getting a ban from Walmart for trying to sell stuff inside their store. > iMessage is intended for communicating with family and friends, and is not for conducting commercial activities or disseminating unwanted messages. iMessage misuse may result in service limitations.

sparkling 5mo ago
Regardless of the ToS violation... isn't this trivial to detect? Even if they keep the message volume low, detecting a swarm of accounts that are sending duplicate/similar messages seems rather trivial? The entire business model depends on Apple turning a blind eye, i'm quite amazed they got any VC money at all.
- nikanj 5mo ago
  Last time an iMessage-for-everyone startup (Beeper Mini) made the news, they had gotten funding from Samsung. Might be something similar here
- pryce 5mo ago
  > i'm quite amazed they got any VC money at all. probably VC bit at the 'agentic' part. Using that word makes some folk lose their minds, and they may then find themselves investing in a whole range of things that they otherwise wouldn't.
sjtgraham 5mo ago
[dead]

zitterbewegung 5mo ago

Why would I use this instead of using iMessage for Business that is the official way and is more robust and doesn’t violate ToS. If you get shut down I have to redo this setup using Apple ?

garygao 5mo ago
iMessage for Business is very restrictive and has a really long approval process. On top of this, it also sends gray bubbles and doesn't allow any outbound, which prevents consented outbound use cases such as form fill text back.
- angulardragon03 5mo ago
  > also sends gray bubbles Incoming messages are _always_ gray on iOS, irrespective of the use of iMessage or SMS. Your solution is not any different in this regard.
  - smt88 5mo ago
    I’ve never seen a gray bubble and have received incoming messages from all different types of accounts
    - collinrapp 5mo ago
      Then there’s a misunderstanding here. I have an iPhone. When I open my Messages app and view a conversation with someone with an iPhone, my outbound messages are blue and their messages to me are gray. When I open a conversation with a non-iPhone user, my outbound messages are green and their messages to me are still gray. Are you sure you’ve never received a incoming gray message? Because that doesn’t seem possible, unless you’re talking about something other than what I and the person you responded to are talking about. As far as I can tell, the OP’s insistence that their service won’t send gray messages seems entirely disconnected from reality.
      - 5mo ago

plombe 5mo ago

AI slop

crsv 5mo ago

Hope this gets killed quickly with prejudice.

throwaway27727 5mo ago

Does the name come from the farsi word "chert"?

Herodotus38 5mo ago
I didn’t realize there was a farsi word chert. I was thinking it was named after my favorite cryptocrystalline silicate mineral.
- Yannaner 5mo ago
  Indeed it is.
Yannaner 5mo ago
The name come from a material name when we were doing archaeology research!

moralestapia 5mo ago

Pricing anywhere?

wheelerwj 5mo ago

If this were legit then twilio would offer it already. People in messaging/b2c apps have been asking for it for a decade and the best weve managed is whatsapp. Kind of weirded out that this made it into YC.

TZubiri 5mo ago

Spam is an evergreen vertical

c0rruptbytes 5mo ago

Why use this over Twilio which works pretty hard to make sure you’re compliant (and supports iMessage for business)?

ada1981 5mo ago

How does this differ from LoopMessage? What is the cost?

systima 5mo ago

Is this allowed under Apple's ToS? I recall the Beeper Mini debacle not so long ago, and fear that this may be a house built on sand.

garygao 5mo ago
Apple is not necessarily against programmatic messaging. In fact, they actually developed Applescript for people to do so. Beeper was using it to replace the iMessage interface when it already exists, which is why I think Apple was against it. We're doing something fundamentally different - allowing agents to interact with humans on iMessage, which is something that the current iMessage interface cannot do.
- hnlmorg 5mo ago
  Apple were against Beeper because it opened their platform to people who weren’t Apple-sanctioned users. Apple might have cited a different technical reason but that would only have been to avoid antitrust regulations. Unfortunately for you, this startup idea also allows non-sanctioned entities access to iMessage. So Apple will ban your access to.

akho 5mo ago

ты черт

sjtgraham 5mo ago

I'm surprised YC funded this — not because it's a bad idea, because it isn't. But because surely one of the first questions was: what happens when Apple decides to shut it down?

nikolay 5mo ago

"Chert" is a poor branding for all Russian [and Ukrainian customers - it means "crap" or "damn".

kmbfjr 5mo ago
Sony had a NAS device for video storage called the “Petafile”.
- nikolay 5mo ago
  Oh, wow! Not that "PDF file" sounds any better, though.
Yannaner 5mo ago
We named it Chert because we were doing archaeology research.
- nikolay 5mo ago
  That's fine, but never forget why Mitsubishi had to rebrand its famous Pajero SUV as the Montero in America and in Spanish-speaking countries [0]! [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mitsubishi_Pajero https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mitsubishi_Pajero
_-_-__-_-_- 5mo ago
better than "shart"... i guess

garygao 5mo ago

[dead]

BoorishBears 5mo ago

This finally put a nail in the coffin for my hope we'll ever get a Twilio for iMessage For me, Twilio for iMessage would mean a DX-first product, highly prototyping friendly, etc... When I was exploring options for a B2C app a while back SendBlue made me sit in a call with a sales person then wanted some 5 figure outlay to start stated... I'm finally accepting that because of the bootleg nature of programmatic iMessage, any company in the space has to be really aggressive with vetting, which in turn means replacing the "Get Your API Key" button with a "Call Us" button: which is the opposite of what Twillo was great at.

jparsons67 5mo ago
Well, there is this now from Twilio. They announced it at SIGNAL this month. https://www.twilio.com/en-us/messaging/channels/apple-messages-for-business https://www.twilio.com/en-us/messaging/channels/apple-messag...
- BoorishBears 5mo ago
  Apple Messages for Business has been around for a while, but it's mostly for communicating with a corporation vs consumer products. And iOS presents it like a support chat instead of a normal conversation.
  - jparsons67 5mo ago
    They position it as "Apple user to business communication." They don't limit it to customer service/tech support. Bllie Eillish and the Haas F1 team just launched a fan experiences on it. Saw The Nudge is on it as well, which was a big upgrade from their old SMS experience.
    - BoorishBears 5mo ago
      You're trying to figure out what it is incrementally, and I'm telling you Apple Messages for Business is ancient news and isn't fit for the purpose described: https://www.apple.com/ios/business-chat/ https://www.apple.com/ios/business-chat/ The "experiences" are not normal 1:1 iMessage conversations. You're joining an outreach channel, and only large corporations (that includes whoever does distribution for Billie Eilish) qualify. Proper consumer apps like: - tomo.ai - poke.com - fractal.space Are all building on services that give you an actual iMessage phone number, and those are what I'd like to see actually offer self-serve one day, just like SMS. You don't need "SMS For Business" to send an SMS.

ajd555 5mo ago

Is it common in these Launch HNs to have a "Live on Hacker News" on the website banner. What does that mean? The link doesn't even point to this thread, but only the main page. Perhaps this is common, but I just don't get it

throw03172019 5mo ago

I feel bad that this launch post is being put down so hard but I unfortunately agree. I get enough text and call spam I can’t prevent even with reporting every single one of them.

kantodtech1 5mo ago

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TheAtomic 5mo ago

Please don't.

srigbok 5mo ago

[flagged]

jparsons67 5mo ago

Your business model is similar to setting up a lemonade stand on the railroad tracks. Nothing wrong with a lemonade stand, but putting it right in the path of oncoming trains seems unwise. All kidding aside, your business model relies on continuously violating Apple's terms of use with impunity. Your technical foundation is built on a service that was designed to prevent what you are doing, and you will be locked into a never ending cat and mouse game with them as they try to block you, and you create new IDs to recover. Even if your use cases aren't scams, you are using the same methods as scammers. Operators of messaging channels are under pressure from EU and other government regulators to stop unsolicited messages. The path you are relying on is only going to get more difficult. Maybe reconsider your path? If you want to be a provider of communication channel access to businesses, consider becoming a legitimate WhatsApp BSP, Apple Messages for Business MSP, etc. Work with the channel operators, not against them. That would be a much more stable foundation for your business.

rkrueger11 5mo ago

[flagged]

dzonga 5mo ago

if I can make a guess: these guys are running a massive e-sim farm that sits on top of a rest api. good luck - but for some of us we would rather stick to apple business

jparsons67 5mo ago

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kmbfjr 5mo ago

Cart abandonment. Good grief, any company that reaches out on that premise immediately loses my business on general principle. I may indeed have forgotten, changed my mind or found it cheaper elsewhere. Get over it. I walked out, chasing me into the parking lot is no way to get me to come back.

Nate4137 5mo ago

How are y'all building differently than Linq or SendBlue(also YC company)? I tried SendBlue but latency was too much (regularly 20+ seconds). Seems like they target Sales use cases. Ended up going w/ Linq, for the virtual boy/girl friend I'm building. Originally chose because the scaled players(Poke, Tomo, ditto) all use Linq, but pricing is for sure enterprise level haha. Would be open to trying y'all if your doing something different/better.