Northwest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
Twilio’s lessons for growth and agility
Twilio has emerged as a technological backbone for thousands of companies during the pandemic. Users rely on its digital tools to connect with customers through mobile apps, call centers and messaging services as the shift to online commerce and curbside pickup accelerates.
The San Francisco company ended September with 208,000 customers, a 21% increase from the same time last year while its revenue surged by 52%. Despite its rapid growth, Twilio still hasn’t proven it can be profitable. The 12-year-old company has amassed nearly $1 billion in losses since its founding by CEO Jeff Lawson and partners. Despite that, the company’s stock price has tripled this year, boosting Lawson’s fortune to an estimated $2.3 billion.
What are some of the lessons that Twilio has learned during these trying times?
The need for agility, to kind of change on a dime and incorporate new information and responses to problems. The companies that have (done that) really invested in agility by hiring software developers, listening to customers, not creating a five-year road map, but creating a sprint after sprint to keep getting better and better. The companies that evolved to incorporate these agile practices, those are the ones that really excelled.
Where were some of the areas where you saw faster growth than you anticipated because of the pandemic? One of them is the contact center. A few years ago, we launched a contact center product that is all software. It runs in the cloud, so the only thing the (call center) agents need is a computer, they just plug in a headset. There is not a hard(wired) phone, so they can really be anywhere. So when you had to send everybody home, they could actually keep working.
Does it feel like the digital shift has been moving even faster this year? This is the year of the great digital, not transformation, but acceleration. We did a survey of about 2,500 (business) decision makers over the summer and we asked them: Has COVID impacted your digital plans? Unsurprisingly, 97% said yes. We asked them how much do you think it has accelerated your digital road maps? And the average was six years.
Do you think the tremendous wealth being created by technology companies is alienating the rest of society? Corporations exist to benefit people, not the other way around. Corporations are a construct that humans invented. It’s not like some natural law of the universe that corporations exist. Corporations are a super organism that are allowed to exist because of laws. I think it’s up to companies to act morally and ethically to improve the world around them because of their existence. Otherwise, there is no God given right for companies to exist.