5 Interesting Learnings from Braze at $260M; Plus Weekly SaaS News and Updates

So an interesting IPO you may have missed is Braze. Braze a decade ago took a next-generation approach to marketing automation software, focused on being mobile and messaging first. In 7 years from launch, it hit $100m in ARR in 2019, and then $200m in 2021, just two years later. Today, they are at $260m in ARR growing a stunning 63% with a $7 Billion market cap.

A great rep often literally closes 9x more than a poor rep. And even 2.5x+ that of a decent, mid-pack rep. With the exact same number — and same quality — of leads. But how does this happen?

With the rise of “Product Led Growth” as such a key concept in SaaS, it brings up an age-old question in business software: Should all pricing be transparent? Doesn’t that just remove a huge amount of friction from buying? Can you even have a mostly self-service motion in PLG with “Contact Me” in your pricing?

SaaS startups, especially those that sign customers to annual customers, will have customers that want to cancel those un-cancelable contracts and get a refund. Even customers that pay monthly on credit card will sometimes ask for a pro-rated refund for the most recent month.

In 2015, SaaS cloud-based content management tool Box went public. Since then, their growth has been impressive, but it hasn’t always been steady. Especially with the coronavirus pandemic, Box—like many other SaaS companies—saw a decline in growth year over year. But this year, they’ve had three consecutive quarters of growth. How did they turn their growth rates around?