Earlier quoted context omitted.
I worry that maybe there's a bubble in Silicon Valley created by all these startups being large customers of each other so it's just a bunch of VC money going around in circles.
Isn't lots of capital flowing around the goal of any healthy economy?
Twilio S-1
191–200 of 229 posts
Re: Twilio S-1
#192Revenue is great; sales & marketing costs are fine, competitive environment is great; the main concern here is the cost of ongoing service. Revenue: Twilio made $166M in 2015. From Q1 2015 to Q1 2016, thew grew 80% -- so we can project a 2016 revenue of around $300M. At that pace, they'll hit ~$1B in 2018 or 2019. Landscape : They have very few competitors, in constrast to other high-profile enterprise startups like…
> the main concern here is the cost of ongoing service.
Where does that cost appear? Just the COR you mentioned?
Re: Twilio S-1
#193There's a lot there not to like: Revenue: $166,919,000 Net Loss: $38,896,000 So they're still not profitable. This is surprising, since they don't have any big capital investments. They're not doing anything that takes a lot of R&D. The thing runs on Amazon AWS. They've been operating for years and should be profitable by now. Yes, they're growing fast, but the costs don't rise in advance of the growth. You don't hav…
If you had to guess what the net loss for Facebook at IPO was, what would you say? More or less than Twilio?
I'd say the comparison is pretty apples/oranges.
Re: Twilio S-1
#194Revenue is great; sales & marketing costs are fine, competitive environment is great; the main concern here is the cost of ongoing service. Revenue: Twilio made $166M in 2015. From Q1 2015 to Q1 2016, thew grew 80% -- so we can project a 2016 revenue of around $300M. At that pace, they'll hit ~$1B in 2018 or 2019. Landscape : They have very few competitors, in constrast to other high-profile enterprise startups like…
I operate a telecom company that mimics the twilio API and we are nabbing their bigger customers left and right. Being fully transparent - our average cost per minute of long-distance is $0.00014 (with 6 second increments) and twilio charges $0.0015/minute (with _60_ second increments).
Wholesale long-distance prices are falling MUCH faster than application providers charging per-call or per-minute. IMHO, That arbitrage will be squeezed eventually as telecom becomes more commoditized.
Re: Twilio S-1
#195Earlier quoted context omitted.
Net loss: Don't think that is a biggie. They expanded their cost base both in R&D, sales & marketing, and general and admin. With a little bit of cost discipline for one year, they are going to be profitable. Voting rights: that is indeed yucky. Competitive threat: Not really. The inertia for existing customers is high, especially since the average revenue per active account is about $580/month. For a big company, th…
A list of their competitors: https://www.quora.com/Who-are-Twilios-competitors . As a Twilio customer that spends maybe ~$500 /mo i'll look at any alternative that allows me to send meta data or allows some process to have a foreign key allowing me to persist conversations in a sane manner (and I'm currently researching just that). Twilio also does not have their own network, so competitors like Bandwidth that have t…
Re: Twilio S-1
#196Revenue is great; sales & marketing costs are fine, competitive environment is great; the main concern here is the cost of ongoing service. Revenue: Twilio made $166M in 2015. From Q1 2015 to Q1 2016, thew grew 80% -- so we can project a 2016 revenue of around $300M. At that pace, they'll hit ~$1B in 2018 or 2019. Landscape : They have very few competitors, in constrast to other high-profile enterprise startups like…
The cost of revenue is interesting. I want to shine some light from an insider perspective to the industry. I operate a telecom company that mimics the twilio API and we are nabbing their bigger customers left and right. Being fully transparent - our average cost per minute of long-distance is $0.00014 (with 6 second increments) and twilio charges $0.0015/minute (with _60_ second increments). Wholesale long-distance…
But that equation changes as a company grows. The question remains whether they can also play effectively at the high volume end of the mArket. I have heard of several other companies that mimic the Twilio API, but with much more competitive pricing.
AWS is successful because companies are deeply locked into their unique services and APIs. Twilio does not (yet) have the same deep lock-in of customers.
Re: Twilio S-1
#197There's a lot there not to like: Revenue: $166,919,000 Net Loss: $38,896,000 So they're still not profitable. This is surprising, since they don't have any big capital investments. They're not doing anything that takes a lot of R&D. The thing runs on Amazon AWS. They've been operating for years and should be profitable by now. Yes, they're growing fast, but the costs don't rise in advance of the growth. You don't hav…
I don't understand this. Is it a land-grab focus? Why do so many software companies focus solely on growth? A traditional business with $166 million in revenue is huge. Why are investors not asking for a return on their investments already? Don't investors usually look for a return on their investments within 2-3 years?
Re: Twilio S-1
#198There's a lot there not to like: Revenue: $166,919,000 Net Loss: $38,896,000 So they're still not profitable. This is surprising, since they don't have any big capital investments. They're not doing anything that takes a lot of R&D. The thing runs on Amazon AWS. They've been operating for years and should be profitable by now. Yes, they're growing fast, but the costs don't rise in advance of the growth. You don't hav…
On the good side, I use their services anytime I need to "confirm my identity through a text message".
I think its impossible to determine whether a cellphone is a real number or Twilio number so it always works! I have a cash prepaid Visa card that I can purchase a Twilio number for $1 and have a text message with confirmation code come to my throwaway email address. Well worth a dollar for almost complete anonymity!!
Re: Twilio S-1
#199Good for them! I love their service and use it on GoatAttack.com
Re: Twilio S-1
#200There's a lot there not to like: Revenue: $166,919,000 Net Loss: $38,896,000 So they're still not profitable. This is surprising, since they don't have any big capital investments. They're not doing anything that takes a lot of R&D. The thing runs on Amazon AWS. They've been operating for years and should be profitable by now. Yes, they're growing fast, but the costs don't rise in advance of the growth. You don't hav…