How Braze Found Opportunity in Headwinds and Scaled to >$400 Million ARR with Braze's Co-Founder & CEO
It’s not an easy time to be a startup entrepreneur. Even as generative AI and LLMs present the potential for a technical paradigm shift, startups today must also grapple with the realities of financial market upheaval, ominous global power shifts, uncertain economic indicators, disruption up and down the supply chain: It may feel as though “hunkering down” is the best that a founder can do. Bill Magnuson, Cofounder and CEO of Braze, has a different take, in which there’s no time like the present era of change to uncover opportunities that can distinguish your business from competitors’ as the skies clear. Having navigated through the early days of mobile and the multiple macro disruptions since to take Braze public and scale to a revenue run rate of $400+ million, Bill has put this strategy to the test. Seeing opportunity in today’s times requires a longitudinal perspective on the underlying forces of change which create growth opportunities, and strategy that anticipates the evolution of those forces while positioning your business to best take advantage of the resulting changes over time.. Timing around disruptions is key, and they provide a key opportunity for innovators to build in response to the evolution of new skillsets, team structures, and business models, all of which create new buyer personas, and can be cultivated even while headwinds stall growth. Those who lean into disruptions with curiosity and optimism can emerge as stronger innovators with deeper competitive moats because they were out building with a growth mindset while everyone else was hunkered down. Key takeaways from this inspiring talk include: How to think about second order effects of disruption, and when their evolution may ultimately reward patience, creating room for the slower growth that is often forced by a difficult macro. What to watch for in areas of macro disruption in order to identify differentiating opportunities in unexpected places. How evolving skillsets, team compositions, and ways of working can transform business, and why its absence can lead to obsolescence.
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How Braze Found Opportunity in Headwinds and Scaled to >$400 Million ARR with Braze's Co-Founder & CEO
Editor's Notes
- origin story [28:00]
- Braze today: IPO – the last one. Then macro shifted. [27:00]
- Google/Android - front-row seat. Rapid consumer behavior change. Change = opportunity, whether tailwinds or headwinds [27:30]
- REFRAME TALK TRACK AROUND NEW INDICATORS, KEEPING SPEED TO ADOPTION POINTS. Business must keep up with consumer behavior changes. SaaS must help lead business transformation. [19:00]
- REFRAME TALK TRACK AROUND NEW INDICATORS, KEEPING SPEED TO ADOPTION POINTS. Business must keep up with consumer behavior changes. SaaS must help lead business transformation. [19:00]
- Look to macro-indicators to affirm convictions and guide actions…and don’t get distracted You are building for a future that may take time to arrive [23:30]
- Dual conviction in rapidly changing landscape Goal: create business value [25:30]
- Our customers’ success proved our hypothesis: good customer engagement drives bottom-line results. Return to sophistication; what works today won’t be good enough in the future because of change SVB bank run didn’t look like “It’s A Wonderful Life” bank run [24:00]
- Didn’t know much about marketing; grew to respect expertise Watch how teams are changing: structures, skill sets, ways of working at individual and cross-team levels [24:30]
- 2 to 20M ARR is key growth period At Braze, it happened across two years. “That was fast!” – but we hit this scale years after founding. [22:30]
- When we launched, smartphone market was nascent. Major revenue growth came when market matured. [22:00]
- When we launched, smartphone market was nascent. Major revenue growth came when market matured. [22:00]
- As Braze growth accelerated, market continues to evolve around us. ADD TALK POINT ABOUT NEW INDICATOR AND 20-200M TIMEFRAME [21:30]
- When we launched, smartphone market was nascent. Major revenue growth came when market matured. [22:00]
- Faster growth is not necessarily better: yes, change is rapid around you, but you must stay “long-term greedy”—use resources efficiently, stick to convictions, monitor fundraising around you. [18:30]
- What is the best way to grow? Risks of C and B. Benefits of A. Perspective of market; perspective of entrepreneur. [15:30]
- Rapid growth has costs. What and how to control for sustainable growth. [12:30]
- Prioritize and focus on differentiation, staying mindful that “market” in “product-market fit” is changing faster than your product can. Preserve scarce resources in early days. Strategic partnerships can fill the gaps. Avoid burning resources on commodities others do better. [11:00]
- Early customers are valuable, but not with you forever. They tolerate risk but don’t want to pay. Think ahead about future customer needs. [06:00]
- Tomorrow’s customers will have different requirements and desires. [05:30]
- Be foresighted about the concerns of those under the curve. Almost 70% of your customers. Enterprise expectations are different. [03:30]
- SUBSTITUTES AND COMPLEMENTS EXPLANATION Let’s look at Braze as an example… [8:30]
- Streaming data. Vertical integration at center of the stack. Modularity at top and bottom. MAU value capture linked to single view of customer. Alternatives included data flow, push quantity, bandwidth/storage. [07:30]
- TK AS TALK TRACK FINALIZED