The CEO of $15 billion Twilio gives his best advice for startups facing a fundraising crunch in a recession: Be frugal, and focus on customers instead of investors
Twilio CEO Jeff Lawson cofounded his company in early 2008, amid the Great Recession. It's now valued about $15 billion on the public markets.
As the global economy faces another recession, Lawson says that this should be a lesson to entrepreneurs: Focus less on raising wads of cash, and more on your customers.When Twilio first launched in the beginning of 2008, it was right in the middle of the Great Recession, and the company struggled to raise any money from venture capitalists.
Twilio describes itself as a cloud communications company, helping customers like Lyft, Hulu, and Airbnb build software that can send text messages and make and receive phone and video calls. "That notion of frugality and investing wisely has been a core part of Twilio's DNA because of our founding in the recession," Lawson said.
"Your job as an entrepreneur was to find customers," Lawson said. "When you're tapped into a customer to understand what they need at this time, find out how to serve customers...If you follow customers, more than ever you'll find opportunities."Twilio wasn't Lawson's first time as a founder. Besides a career at Amazon helping build what would later become the Amazon Web Services cloud computing unit, Lawson also cofounded three companies, including StubHub.
It wasn't that easy. The Great Recession had made investors more cautious about making investments in the first place, and venture capitalists were wary of investing in the then-unproven market for developer tools.
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