4 ms·

I don't see any information on Twilio's net expenditures. Am I missing something? What is the significance in taking in $100M in revenue if you had to spend >

I don't see any information on Twilio's net expenditures. Am I missing something? What is the significance in taking in $100M in revenue if you had to spend > $100M to get it? Cough BOX Cough Also, how many customers do they have who pay them more than 100-250K/year? Where are these "big deals" coming from? In my experience, Twilio was quite expensive (i.e. not cost-effective) compared to other Telephony service providers. I really like their solid platform, and at the same time I'm a little surprised by the IPO move right now. Have they already burned through the $70M in funding they took in 18 months ago?

quadrature 12y ago
We will know more when the SEC filings are underway, until then its anyone's guess.
dubcanada 12y ago
I rarely see Twilio ads. When Box was big there was not a site that I visited that I didn't get at least one Box ad, and dare I ever type Dropbox into Google. Nothing but straight Box ads for weeks. Not that this proves anything at all, but I don't think they marketed nearly as hard as Box. But there does seem to be very little in regards to competition. Every single big internet company has their own "cloud storage".
- sjtgraham 12y ago
  > I rarely see Twilio ads ¿Qué? - https://twitter.com/anniebp_/status/567243532805476352 https://twitter.com/anniebp_/status/567243532805476352
  - corin_ 12y ago
    Well that's sorted then, dubcanada must indeed see Twilio ads all the time! One billboard doesn't disprove a claim that a company doesn't do much advertising, especially if it's just a personal anecdote about how many ads he's noticed.
- ihaveajob 12y ago
  Perhaps you failed prey to ad retargeting? It's happened to me with several services. Once you visit their website, you keep seeing their ads everywhere.
e12e 12y ago
Well, 200 000 USD in revenue per employee sounds pretty good to me. Sure they'll have other expenses, but my rule of thumb is that you should be getting ~135K USD per head in revenue as a minimum (when starting out) -- so 200K for an established company sounds healthy to me. This is a crazy generalization of course -- and mostly applies when you don't have to deal to much with the physical world of logistics etc.
beachstartup 12y ago
uh, well. they're still a private company, so we'll find out when they file. that's kind of the point of an IPO filing.
mbesto 12y ago
> I don't see any information on Twilio's net expenditures. Am I missing something? Whats more important than net expenditures is CAC/LTV/Churn, etc. I would expand more but it's more eloquently put here: http://a16z.com/2014/05/13/understanding-saas-valuation-primer/ http://a16z.com/2014/05/13/understanding-saas-valuation-prim... People often forget that many of the companies featured here on HN are venture businesses which means their returns are high risk-high return financial structures, and their profits are being predicated on EXTREMELY profitable business models coughFB/Googlecough. > Also, how many customers do they have who pay them more than 100-250K/year? Where are these "big deals" coming from? Take a company like Mavenlink or Basecamp who might be bringing in $50-$150mil in revenue every year. They would easily be coughing out $250k+ on Twilio. No idea if those companies use Twilio specifically, but it's foreseeable many CRM/PM tools would.

quadrature 12y ago

We will know more when the SEC filings are underway, until then its anyone's guess.

dubcanada 12y ago

I rarely see Twilio ads. When Box was big there was not a site that I visited that I didn't get at least one Box ad, and dare I ever type Dropbox into Google. Nothing but straight Box ads for weeks. Not that this proves anything at all, but I don't think they marketed nearly as hard as Box. But there does seem to be very little in regards to competition. Every single big internet company has their own "cloud storage".

sjtgraham 12y ago
> I rarely see Twilio ads ¿Qué? - https://twitter.com/anniebp_/status/567243532805476352 https://twitter.com/anniebp_/status/567243532805476352
- corin_ 12y ago
  Well that's sorted then, dubcanada must indeed see Twilio ads all the time! One billboard doesn't disprove a claim that a company doesn't do much advertising, especially if it's just a personal anecdote about how many ads he's noticed.
ihaveajob 12y ago
Perhaps you failed prey to ad retargeting? It's happened to me with several services. Once you visit their website, you keep seeing their ads everywhere.

e12e 12y ago

Well, 200 000 USD in revenue per employee sounds pretty good to me. Sure they'll have other expenses, but my rule of thumb is that you should be getting ~135K USD per head in revenue as a minimum (when starting out) -- so 200K for an established company sounds healthy to me. This is a crazy generalization of course -- and mostly applies when you don't have to deal to much with the physical world of logistics etc.

beachstartup 12y ago

uh, well. they're still a private company, so we'll find out when they file. that's kind of the point of an IPO filing.

mbesto 12y ago

> I don't see any information on Twilio's net expenditures. Am I missing something? Whats more important than net expenditures is CAC/LTV/Churn, etc. I would expand more but it's more eloquently put here: http://a16z.com/2014/05/13/understanding-saas-valuation-primer/ http://a16z.com/2014/05/13/understanding-saas-valuation-prim... People often forget that many of the companies featured here on HN are venture businesses which means their returns are high risk-high return financial structures, and their profits are being predicated on EXTREMELY profitable business models coughFB/Googlecough. > Also, how many customers do they have who pay them more than 100-250K/year? Where are these "big deals" coming from? Take a company like Mavenlink or Basecamp who might be bringing in $50-$150mil in revenue every year. They would easily be coughing out $250k+ on Twilio. No idea if those companies use Twilio specifically, but it's foreseeable many CRM/PM tools would.