I found a terrific deep dive article about Twilio, not dealing with its finances, or last quarter’s earning report, etc, but an existential strategy discussion about risks, advantages, problems in overcoming the risks and taking advantage of the advantages. Wow! Interesting! But prepare yourself for a read.
Saul
I noticed this very early in the article: …Uber could substantially reduce its spending with no penalties.
I couldn’t find a date on the post, but it seems like it was written before Uber pulled their business. I wonder what he thinks now?
Jeb
Long TWLO
Explorer Supernaut
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I couldn’t find a date on the post, but it seems like it was written before Uber pulled their business. I wonder what he thinks now?
Hi Jeb, I think Uber’s partial withdrawal is irrelevant to the author’s comments about Twilio’s culture, products, risks, advantages, problems, and future. But that’s just my opinion.
Saul
I think from the context that the completed thought is “Uber could substantially reduce its spending with no penalties” to Uber.
Twilio could be a takeover target, but a savvy company might wait for it to falter first.
Interesting article (by the way, the first 5 paragraphs of the essay are a masterclass in marketing - anyone else noticing that?).
The ironic part: “In Twilio’s earliest days, multiple angel investors and VCs told Twilio’s founders that focusing on software developers would never lead to a venture-scale business. To make their case, Twilio’s skeptics pointed out that software developers have no control over budgets in the enterprise.”
The industry lore is that Microsoft was on top for so long because they recruited developers by providing lots of information and free tools to help them. When all the applications ran on Windows, everyone bought Windows computers. And when all the customers had Windows computers, developers had to build for Windows. The developers who started out using free tools in college eventually got jobs and Windows was what they knew so they used it.
The iPhone app store has a similar status now. It’s part of the value that I see in companies like Shopify and Twilio that are the default choice for people starting a new business or project.
How quickly people forget!