French startup ten ten reinvents the walkie-talkie

Less than one year after its iOS launch, French startup ten ten has gone viral with a walkie-talkie app that allows teens to send voice messages to their close friends — even when their phone is locked.

Whether you think that's a recipe for disaster or the coolest thing you've heard may depend on your age group, and teens clearly heard of that one long before we did; although walkie-talkies are clearly not a new concept, even in app form. Ten ten is doing the same, but in 2024.

"We’re ephemeral by design," ten ten co-founder and CEO, Jule Comar said in a written interview with TechCrunch. He added that in CB codes, 1010 means “Transmission completed, standing by.” According to Comar, this is just one of “multiple meanings that align with our values and the concept." It seems to be resonating; the app is free and quickly climbing rankings.

Ten ten's sudden rise is particularly noticeable in France, where it has been downloaded 1 million times. Including on Android, where it became available a few weeks ago, the app saw 6 million downloads since its launch, according to data shared by market intelligence firm Sensor Tower with TechCrunch on Friday.

The concept could also receive tweaks along the way. The current UX suggests a nine-friend cap, but that's not the case. "Ten ten is for close friends but there’s no friend limit; we’re seeing people share their PINs on social media so we’re working on a better friend management system," Comar said.

The PINs that Comar is referring to are the IDs that users can use to find each other. The app also asks for access to the user's contacts (but nobody gets added without user action.) There's inherent virality in this model, but that's not the only growth driver; TikTok "played an important role," Comar said.

Ten ten's download numbers have undoubtedly kept on rising during the weekend: The startup has been all over the French media lately. Not always with a positive spin; French newspaper Le Figaro, for instance, called it "worrying." "I was very surprised," Comar said. "There’s nothing “dangerous” about ten ten!"

It's not just articles looking at the app in a negative light; there is also fake news circulating, Comar said. "There were some rumors going around that we were a Chinese app because of the name "ten ten" and we got wrongly accused of "spying" and "stealing data …"

Ten ten is not Chinese, though. The company has been duly registered in France, since 2021, meaning it is also subject to the GDPR. Its current terms and conditions are formulaic, but mention that the team is in the process of writing better ones. More importantly, the startup's privacy policy is adamant about two points:

All your conversations are ephemeral, we can’t listen to your conversation as we don’t even store them!

We will never sell your data!!

#TenTenApp #WalkieTalkie #Dangerous