In 2012, Brian and Jamey Elrod were sitting in a Chattanooga restaurant, waiting – and waiting – for their server, but no one was checking on their table. Frustrated, they joked, “Too bad we can’t just text the restaurant.”
That passing thought stuck.
Two years later, that idea became Text Request, a Chattanooga-grown software company that would play a significant role in transforming how businesses communicate with customers.
Today, from its Market Street headquarters above a shuttered taquería, Text Request helps more than 7,500 businesses across North America send more than half a billion text messages a year. It generates $15 million in annual recurring revenue and has attracted the attention – and acquisition – of global messaging leader Commify.
But the heart of Text Request is still the same: making it easy for businesses and customers to connect through texting.
Why text wins
“Only about 17% of businesses use SMS messaging, which is crazy if you think about it,” says Matt Hodges, vice president of marketing at Commify, based at Text Request’s Chattanooga office. “It’s the most personal channel you have.”
Text Request allows businesses to send and receive texts using their existing office numbers, all from a web browser, desktop app or mobile device. Customers can reply, turning appointment reminders or marketing messages into two-way conversations.
Its clients span such diverse industries as medical practices, hair salons, fitness studios, home services, insurance brokers, financial planners and more.
“A salon might send reminders that you’re due for a haircut,” Hodges says. “It’s shortening the sales cycle and providing personalized service.”
Hodges points to a dental practice using Text Request to reduce no-shows. Instead of relying on voicemails patients ignore, the office sends a simple text reminder, which patients can confirm or reschedule with a quick reply. For a fitness center, he says, it might mean sending out a blast text when someone drops out of a spin class – filling the seat in minutes.
Compared to email or phone calls, texting has a staggering advantage.
“With phone calls, you have an army of staff making outbound calls and a low connection rate,” Hodges explains. “Emails are easily ignored – a 20% open rate and 1% action rate is considered good. But 95% of texts are read within minutes, with a 50% action rate.”
In short, people pay attention to texts.
Making texting simple
One of Text Request’s competitive edges is helping businesses navigate 10DLC registration, an industrywide challenge.
10DLC, or Ten Digit Long Code, is a system U.S. carriers use to regulate business text messaging, improve deliverability and reduce spam. Without proper registration, businesses can’t send mass texts reliably.
“Getting a number provisioned and campaigns registered can be a headache if you don’t know what you’re doing,” Hodges says. “We help set up customers – and within 24 hours, most are up and ready to send texts.”
This rapid onboarding and regulatory expertise sets Text Request apart, Hodges adds, especially for small businesses that can’t afford to spend days wrestling with carrier rules.
Behind the user-friendly interface lies a sophisticated engine – one that co-founder and chief technology officer Rob Reagan has helped shape since Day One.
“Our first proof of concept was quick and dirty,” Reagan recalls. “The goal was to test if we could gain traction, with minimal time investment. It only allowed for one-on-one messaging using a very simple architecture.”
As interest grew, the technical demands skyrocketed.
“The primary challenge with messaging at scale is that traffic comes and goes in bursts,” Reagan explains. “The conversational base load might be small, but when a few customers send hundreds of thousands of messages at once, they need to be delivered in real time. We use message queues to throttle traffic and cloud compute instances that rapidly scale in and out to handle the load.”
Beyond output, Reagan is most proud of the user experience.
“There was never an attitude of rushing something out the door,” he says. “We spent a lot of time trying to make a powerful solution that was as intuitive and simple as possible.”
A Tennessee-grown company
Brian and Jamey Elrod didn’t set out to build a Silicon Valley startup. They were Ooltewah High School sweethearts, tied to their Tennessee roots.
“They wanted to create something meaningful here,” Hodges says.
After an initial outsourced attempt failed, the Elrods partnered with Reagan, and the trio launched Text Request in 2014.
From a four-person team, they built the company grassroots, using their own money.
“Brian said, ‘We thought we needed venture funding. That didn’t work out – and we’re grateful it didn’t,’” Hodges recalls.
That decision proved critical: it allowed the team to control their own direction, scale sustainably and stay laser-focused on small and midsize businesses.
Along the way, Text Request earned recognition, appearing four times on the Inc. 5000 list of fastest-growing companies and being named a “Best Place to Work” by EDGE Magazine three times.
Big breaks, breakthroughs
A defining moment came in 2021, when Twilio – one of the U.S.’s major text aggregators – bought Zipwhip, another business texting platform.
“Twilio didn’t care about Zipwhip’s customer business; they just wanted the tech,” Hodges explains.
When Twilio announced it was sunsetting Zipwhip, Reagan and his engineering team building a migration tool to help Zipwhip’s customers transition smoothly onto the Text Request platform. The move positioned the company for a surge of new customers – but it wasn’t their first trial by fire.
In 2018, a national political consultant called unexpectedly.
“They asked, ‘Do you guys do political texting?’’ Reagan remembers. “We replied, ‘What’s political texting?’”
Within eight weeks, they had released their first political messaging feature. What followed was a deluge: millions of messages pouring into the platform.
“Our engineering team spent days monitoring performance and spinning up new services to handle the load,” Reagan says. “At the end of each day, we’d breathe a sigh of relief, review what we’d learned, implement changes, deploy them, and get ready to do it again. Many of these sessions lasted well past midnight.”
The experience wasn’t just a technical test – it was a confidence builder.
“This trial by fire is one of the main reasons Text Request is where it is today,” Reagan says. “In addition to the traffic, there was also a deluge of revenue, which fueled our growth over the following years and proved our platform’s ability to perform under high loads.”
Why customers stay
In a market with many options, businesses stick with Text Request for three main reasons, Hodges says: its powerful, intuitive product; smooth onboarding – including 10DLC registration; and responsive, local customer service.
“Our customer support calls come right here to Chattanooga,” he says. “They don’t go offshore. That’s one reason we’re so quick at answering anything that comes up.”
The company also offers unique features like an SMS chat widget that converts website visitors into text leads and soon-to-launch drip campaigns – automated sequences of texts that onboard, engage and nurture customers over weeks.
“These are just new ways to keep the conversation going,” says Hodges.
The Commify acquisition
In October 2024, U.K.-based Commify acquired Text Request in its largest deal yet – doubling its U.S. business to more than $30 million.
For Commify, which has made 18 acquisitions since 2013 across Europe and Australia, Text Request was a key U.S. foothold.
While the financial terms of the Commify acquisition were not disclosed, Hodges describes it as one of Chattanooga’s greatest tech success stories. Following the transition to Commify, Brian and Jamey Elrod are gradually stepping back from day-to-day operations, closing a remarkable decade of leadership.
“It’s probably the largest tech exit in Chattanooga history. The founders bootstrapped the company from the ground up and built something everyone here can be proud of.”
Importantly, the Chattanooga identity is staying intact.
“Commify is adamant about keeping the team here,” says Hodges. “They love Chattanooga. They see it as a great place to attract talent. They have no desire to disrupt what’s worked.”
Commify’s vision includes integrating SMS with WhatsApp, email and other messaging platforms into a unified product, expanding the offerings that Text Request can provide to its customers.
Text Request shares Commify’s U.S. portfolio with Esendex US, a sister company based in Virginia Beach. While Text Request focuses largely on small and midsize businesses, Esendex serves more enterprise-level clients, including major names like UPS.
“We sell to large organizations, too,” Hodges explains, “but Esendex is more into the enterprise customer base, while we’re more focused on the SMB market.”
For Reagan, the acquisition comes at a transition point. Previously overseeing product, engineering and IT, he’s now handing off responsibilities across the organization and will exit at the end of 2025.
“It’s exciting to see the improvements made thus far, and I’m bullish on the future,” he says. “Commify excels at implementing the processes needed to take us to the next level.”
On the technical side, the team is preparing for continued growth.
“We’re finalizing a modified outbound message pipeline that will further enhance scalability,” Reagan says. “Our platform is well-designed for future growth, and success will come as we extend it for new industries and use cases.”
For Hodges and the broader team, the goal is ambitious but clear: double or triple the business in the next few years.
A Tennessee success story
Reflecting on a decade of growth, Reagan is most proud of two things: the product and the people.
“We’re proud of our high-volume capacity and onboarding systems, but mostly, I’m proud of our amazing product management and design teams,” he says. “Most of the people here have been with us seven years or more and are still excited to be here.”
For Chattanooga, Text Request stands as a rare example: a homegrown, bootstrapped tech company that reached national scale, innovated in a competitive market, and exited on its own terms.
“We built a great company with strong fundamentals that does business the right way,” Hodges says.
And it all started with two locals in a restaurant, wondering why they couldn’t just send a text.