Good for them! I love their service and use it on GoatAttack.com
Your company is the new Unicorn. It's so great.
Twilio S-1
31–40 of 229 posts
Re: Twilio S-1
#32This is the first time I've ever looked through an S-1 before, but in the Risks section they say: We have a history of losses and we are uncertain about our future profitability Is it normal to go public when being uncertain if you'll ever be profitable?
The Risks sections are always like that. Any advertisements for stocks must have disclaimers about a wide range of possible risks, and that despite promising historical data you could lose your entire investment. Otherwise they could face expensive lawsuits when future shareholders claim that they were misled and not informed of these risks.
For example from Facebook's S-1: "Growth in use of Facebook through our mobile products, where we do not currently display ads, as a substitute for use on personal computers may negatively affect our revenue and financial results.", "We expect our rates of growth will decline in the future."
Google's S-1: "We expect our growth rates to decline and anticipate downward pressure on our operating margin in the future.", "We are susceptible to index spammers who could harm the integrity of our web search results.", "New technologies could block our ads, which would harm our business."
Re: Twilio S-1
#33This is the first time I've ever looked through an S-1 before, but in the Risks section they say: We have a history of losses and we are uncertain about our future profitability Is it normal to go public when being uncertain if you'll ever be profitable?
That section seems to have a bunch of generally understood truths. When you read that line in context with the others it doesn't seem that bad.
Re: Twilio S-1
#34This is the first time I've ever looked through an S-1 before, but in the Risks section they say: We have a history of losses and we are uncertain about our future profitability Is it normal to go public when being uncertain if you'll ever be profitable?
Think of it as a standard disclaimer, to pre-empt potential lawsuits.
Re: Twilio S-1
#35I continue to be surprised by the trend of companies who have fallen short of profitability filing for IPO's. So often i find myself asking "is this the best for the company and its employees or is it best for the investors who want a faster return, at the expense of the company and its employees?"
there is no trend
Re: Twilio S-1
#36I continue to be surprised by the trend of companies who have fallen short of profitability filing for IPO's. So often i find myself asking "is this the best for the company and its employees or is it best for the investors who want a faster return, at the expense of the company and its employees?"
Don't be surprised, the whole point of an IPO is to raise money to fund business growth.
Re: Twilio S-1
#37I continue to be surprised by the trend of companies who have fallen short of profitability filing for IPO's. So often i find myself asking "is this the best for the company and its employees or is it best for the investors who want a faster return, at the expense of the company and its employees?"
Traditionally an IPO was a mechanism for raising funds for continued growth. I know VC backing has been the more favorable mechanism of late, but being profitable has never really been a trigger for an IPO.
Re: Twilio S-1
#38This is the first time I've ever looked through an S-1 before, but in the Risks section they say: We have a history of losses and we are uncertain about our future profitability Is it normal to go public when being uncertain if you'll ever be profitable?
Many/most of the risks outline in an S-1 are boilerplate like this. Obviously future financial results are unclear.
Re: Twilio S-1
#39I love Twilio, but I'm a little surprised they lost $35M on $166M rev in 2015. I thought they were very close to profitability.
They are not being managed for profitability; they are being managed for scale. They are growing at near 100% y/o/y, so management has decided to keep the pedal down until they win the market. Profitability comes in the out years, way down the line. Amazon is the most famous (successful) example of this. I don't work there, but I can assure you that nothing at Twilio is structured to be a profitable small company.
It's just absurd that a company can't be profitable with 28M paying users some of which include Uber and WhatsApp.
Re: Twilio S-1
#40Looking at their escalating losses, I have to wonder if this IPO is a desperation play after failing to raise private money at an acceptable valuation in the current climate.