Braze, Inc. (NASDAQ:BRZE) Q4 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

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you’re going to start to see that stabilize over the coming quarters which is why there’s not any appreciable in our guidance, appreciable improvement in the operating leverage between Q4 and in Q1, for example. And so you’re going to start to see that over the coming quarters as we the revenue growth continues to evolve and that continues to play out and the overall growth in the expense structure moderates as a result of the headcount pause.

Taylor McGinnis: Got it. And then just as a quick follow-up. So when we think about the positive quarterly by 2025 commentary, is there any level of revenue growth, I guess, even directionally that you guys are thinking in that time frame that would drive that? And then also to anything on the hiring front embedded in that further out outlook.

Isabelle Winkles: So I’ll say 2 very high-level comments on that. One is for that to happen for the positive quarterly operating income and free cash flow to come to pass in FY ’25, we are not expecting any acceleration in revenue growth between FY ’24 and FY ’25. And we do have the ability to hire some level. We will have some incremental headcount that is embedded in the forecast for the following year. So we’ve not dependent on sustaining this headcount pause through to next year.

Operator: And our next question comes from Derrick Wood with Cowen.

Derrick Wood: Bill, I wanted to start asking about pricing and packaging. I think one of the changes you made last year was to diversify away from platform sales. sell a bit more on a modular basis. And just from a sales standpoint or to be more precise with the use cases. Has there been any kind of material change in terms of how you’re selling your various products? And what are the netbacks to think about when looking at the impact on sales cycles and deal sizes and transaction volumes and all that when looking into the new year.

Bill Magnuson: Yes. I’d break this down in a couple of ways. One is that we’ve been preparing the product for this and I think that, that’s really important both in the near term for all the things you just referenced but also in the long term because as part of our start anywhere, go everywhere framework, we want to have customers have more and more places where they can get going. And that in the future could include channel and platform or channel and kind of customer touch point pairings that that we don’t even currently sell today. And so we’re excited to see that continue — that we’re basically setting the stage for us to be able to do that into the future. I don’t — you shouldn’t expect to see that much of a, call it, ASP change.

We actually had an increase in ASP heading into Q4. And you can kind of drive those numbers, obviously, from what we’ve already shared. And we do have instances where customers are certainly buying a narrower set of entitlements but we also have that vendor consolidation trend that’s happening which is obviously pushing in the other direction. And so when you kind of net those things out, I wouldn’t expect to see material changes in what you’re seeing in terms of average deal size as these motions but what it is doing for us is it’s expanding our addressable market and it’s going to be able to do it more easily.

Derrick Wood: Yes, that makes sense. One Isabelle, for you on net revenue retention rate and just kind of thinking about directional trends, it sounds like you’d probably be expecting some more pressure on that with respect to how you guided. But just you guys are a bit unique out there. You’ve got a pretty diversified pricing model, other companies. There’s companies with seat-based licensing models that are seen pressure because of headcount growth. There’s other companies with consumption models, seen pressure because of optimization. Again, you guys are much more diversified. Do you think that lends to more durability and net expansion rates. And I guess if not, what parts of the model could come under more pressure given the macro trends.

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