TWLO ceo Jeff Lawson was on podcast This Week in Startups yesterday. I feel more optimistic about the investment now. Big TAM, founder led, great leadership with ambition and energy, skin in the game, etc. Some tidbits:
He was a co-founder of Stubhub and worked for Amazon AWS
Started TWLO in 2008. Revenue in 2009 was $200k and in 2010 was $2 million. Now 1 billion run rate
Asked about if giant companies like Amazon could destroy TWLO if they develop the same product. Answer: Good relationship with Amazon; Amazon is an investor in TWLO. Even big company want to develop the same product, it’s still the small team in the big company compete with them. So it’s not easy to compete with twlo. Focus on your customer and you will win.
1 trillion market
always feels it’s day one
Heavy investment for great opportunity. But always be efficient.
140% net retention rate including churn.
most wealth is in TWLO stocks. So it’s paper wealth. Work hard, so someday it will become real wealth.
3000 employee now. As a leader, always be energetic.
Take visible vacation. It’s a marathon not a spring.
Has a career coach.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Q86UjKU4uI
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TWLO ceo Jeff Lawson was on podcast This Week in Startups yesterday. I feel more optimistic about the investment now. Big TAM, founder led, great leadership with ambition and energy, skin in the game, etc. Some tidbits:…
Thanks Kevin, I watched the whole podcast. It was as you said. The only thing that disappointed me is that the interview was much more about his experience as an entrepreneur than about Twilio itself.
Saul
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The only thing that disappointed me is that the interview was much more about his experience as an entrepreneur than about Twilio itself.
Exactly what I thought. Otherwise, excellent.
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The insight into Lawson was appreciated as I’ve always seen him as a bit too “rah-rah” cheerleader-esque for my tastes. But from what I saw, that is an incorrect view. He seems quite level headed about his task at hand. I liked how he answered the question of becoming a billionaire as well.
And overall, it seems as if he is a good leader who has a complete grasp on his business.
So while I agree it would have been interesting to hear a bit more about Twilio the business instead of Lawson the man, I like the insight I got out of it and it was very worthwhile listening. Thanks for posting.
A.J.
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And overall, it seems as if he is a good leader who has a complete grasp on his business.
Absolutely. Hadn’t looked too hard into him. But he is highly articulate and knows how to tell a story especially about Twilio and it’s product.
I actually listened to the part about the founding of TWLO and him going through Flex three times. Captivating.
And convincing. Remember when they rallied about large enterprises in a sales cycle with Flex during the call? He calls out Shopify which we discussed and in not direct terms Home Depot and ING Bank. And gives the story of Shopify which was kind of like their developer homey to get it right on Flex.
The other two huge enterprises were developing a software/cloud call center and stretchinggggg Twilio out to make it happen. There is no software/cloud call center in the market. And like a smart developer-up company Twilio said we can make a product to fill that need. HD and ING responded they would like Twilio to make that product so they have.
Flex is cloud software billed based off usage of platform. It is a toll booth on Home Depot, Shopify, etc call center. And then the next and the next.
Chu Ching.
If you were a venture capitalist with a startup that was making the worlds first ever and only software cloud product to create a modern call center would you invest?
Now they have the whole TWLO business to offset what sounds like a hyper growth opportunity, but that happens to be hyper growth too, and it’s public and we can invest.
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I am so glad I watched the entire podcast. I am not getting out of TWLO for a long time. This company is going after a really huge TAM.
Thanks for posting again.
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