Braze Inc (BRZE) 2023 Q4 法說會逐字稿

Welcome to the Braze Fourth Quarter Fiscal Year 2023 Financial Results Conference Call. My name is Michael, and I will be your operator for today. (Operator Instructions) I will now turn the call over to Christopher Ferris. Head of Braze Investor Relations.

歡迎參加 Braze 2023 財年第四季度財務業績電話會議。我叫邁克爾，今天我是你的接線員。 （操作員說明）我現在將電話轉給克里斯托弗·費里斯。 Braze 投資者關係主管。

Thank you, operator. Good afternoon, and thank you for joining us today to review Braze's results for the fiscal fourth quarter 2023. I'm joined by our Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer, Bill Magnuson; and our Chief Financial Officer Isabelle Winkles. We announced our results in a press release issued after the market closed today. Please refer to our investor website at investors.braze.com for more information and a supplemental presentation related to today's earnings announcement.

謝謝你，運營商。下午好，感謝您今天加入我們，回顧 Braze 2023 財年第四季度的業績。我們的聯合創始人兼首席執行官 Bill Magnuson 也加入了我的行列；以及我們的首席財務官 Isabelle Winkles。我們在今天收市後發布的新聞稿中公佈了我們的業績。請訪問我們的投資者網站 investors.braze.com，了解更多信息以及與今天的收益公告相關的補充介紹。

During this call, we will make statements related to our business that are forward-looking under the federal securities laws and the safe harbor provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. These statements include, but are not limited to, statements regarding our financial outlook for the first quarter ended April 30, 2023, and for our fiscal year ended January 31, 2024, our planned product and feature development and the benefits to us and our customers therefrom, including our AI tools, our anticipated market opportunity, the potential impact of current macroeconomic trends, our anticipated customer behaviors, including vendor consolidation trends and their impact on Braze, our growth plan, our vision, our long-term financial targets and goals, including the anticipated period in which we may generate positive non-GAAP operating income, and positive free cash flow.

在本次電話會議中，我們將根據聯邦證券法和 1995 年私人證券訴訟改革法案的安全港條款做出與我們業務相關的前瞻性聲明。這些聲明包括但不限於關於我們的聲明截至 2023 年 4 月 30 日的第一季度和截至 2024 年 1 月 31 日的財政年度的財務展望，我們計劃的產品和功能開發以及由此給我們和我們的客戶帶來的好處，包括我們的人工智能工具、我們預期的市場機會、當前宏觀經濟趨勢的潛在影響、我們預期的客戶行為，包括供應商整合趨勢及其對 Braze 的影響、我們的增長計劃、我們的願景、我們的長期財務目標和目標，包括我們可能產生積極非GAAP 營業收入和正的自由現金流。

These statements are subject to a variety of risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from expectations and reflect our views only as of today. We assume no obligation to update any such forward-looking statements. For a discussion of the material risks and uncertainties that could affect our results, please refer to the risks identified in today's press release and our SEC filings, both available on the Investors section of our website. I'd also like to remind you that today's call will include certain non-GAAP financial measures used by management to evaluate our ongoing operations and to aid investors in further understanding the company's fiscal fourth quarter 2023 performance in addition to the impact these items have on the financial results. Please refer to the reconciliations of our non-GAAP financial measures to the most directly comparable financial measures calculated in accordance with U.S. GAAP included in our earnings release under the Investor Relations portion of our website. The non-GAAP financial measures provided should not be considered as a substitute for or superior to the measures of financial performance prepared in accordance with U.S. GAAP.

這些陳述受到各種風險和不確定性的影響，這些風險和不確定性可能導致實際結果與預期存在重大差異，並且僅反映我們今天的觀點。我們不承擔更新任何此類前瞻性陳述的義務。有關可能影響我們結果的重大風險和不確定性的討論，請參閱今天的新聞稿和我們向美國證券交易委員會提交的文件中確定的風險，兩者均可在我們網站的投資者部分獲得。我還想提醒您，今天的電話會議將包括管理層使用的某些非 GAAP 財務措施，以評估我們的持續運營並幫助投資者進一步了解公司 2023 財年第四季度的業績以及這些項目對公司的影響財務結果。請參閱我們的非 GAAP 財務指標與根據美國 GAAP 計算的最直接可比財務指標的調節，這些指標包含在我們網站投資者關係部分的收益發布中。所提供的非 GAAP 財務指標不應被視為替代或優於根據美國 GAAP 編制的財務業績指標。

And now I'd like to turn the call over to Bill.

現在我想把電話轉給比爾。

Thank you, Chris, and good afternoon, everyone. We delivered a strong fourth quarter, generating $98.7 million in revenue, up 40% versus the prior year and 6% compared to the prior quarter, again demonstrating the high ROI and long-term value of the Braze solution. Our results were strong despite a challenging macroeconomic environment that elongated sales cycles, particularly in our Commercial segment. We increased our total customer count by 55% sequentially to $1,770 and continue to win against both legacy Marketing Clouds and Point Solutions. Notable recent new business wins and upsells include Discovery Communications, Finish Line, McClatchy Media Company, MyFitnessPal, Sonic Drive-in and Heycar, one of Europe's leading online marketplaces for high-quality used cars, among many others.

謝謝克里斯，大家下午好。我們在第四季度表現強勁，創造了 9870 萬美元的收入，與去年同期相比增長 40%，與上一季度相比增長 6%，再次證明了 Braze 解決方案的高投資回報率和長期價值。儘管充滿挑戰的宏觀經濟環境延長了銷售週期，但我們的業績依然強勁，尤其是在我們的商業部門。我們的客戶總數連續增加了 55% 至 1,770 美元，並繼續戰勝傳統營銷雲和點解決方案。最近值得注意的新業務贏得和追加銷售包括 Discovery Communications、Finish Line、McClatchy Media Company、MyFitnessPal、Sonic Drive-in 和 Heycar（歐洲領先的高品質二手車在線市場之一）等。

Customers continue to recognize the high ROI that can be achieved through personalized, cross-channel customer engagement enabled by the Braze platform. Despite market challenges, we remain confident in our ability to execute on our growth plans. Braze's momentum continues in key industries, such as retail and e-commerce and media and telecommunications. And as legacy marketing tools come up for renewal we see traction in newer to Braze industries like travel and hospitality. And today, I'm proud to announce that during Q4, we passed $400 million of committed annual recurring revenue, demonstrating our ability to capitalize on our growing market opportunity to deliver best-in-class customer engagement at scale.

客戶繼續認識到通過 Braze 平台支持的個性化、跨渠道客戶參與可以獲得高投資回報率。儘管存在市場挑戰，但我們對執行增長計劃的能力充滿信心。 Braze 在零售和電子商務以及媒體和電信等關鍵行業繼續保持發展勢頭。隨著傳統營銷工具的更新，我們看到了旅遊和酒店等新興行業的吸引力。今天，我很自豪地宣布，在第四季度，我們承諾的年度經常性收入超過了 4 億美元，這表明我們有能力利用我們不斷增長的市場機會，大規模提供一流的客戶參與度。

Thank you to our dedicated and talented team across the globe who help make this happen. I'm excited to build on our success with you and march toward our next goal of becoming a $1 billion revenue company.

感謝我們遍布全球的敬業且才華橫溢的團隊幫助實現了這一目標。我很高興能與您一起在我們的成功基礎上再接再厲，朝著我們成為收入 10 億美元的公司的下一個目標邁進。

Looking ahead, we are confident that whichever way the macroeconomic winds blow, customer engagement will remain a universal business imperative. In tough times, brands shift their focus to higher return activities like life cycle optimization and retention. To stand out, marketers need to use powerful customer engagement technology to drive innovation and productivity, all in service to customer value. And we are increasingly seeing the trend towards vendor consolidation, which we think we will benefit from, specifically, customers come to Braze looking to strengthen their customer engagement suite with a platform that is simultaneously comprehensive while being intuitively integrated and powered by real-time data.

展望未來，我們相信，無論宏觀經濟風向如何，客戶參與仍將是普遍的業務需求。在困難時期，品牌將重點轉移到更高回報的活動上，例如生命週期優化和保留。要想脫穎而出，營銷人員需要使用強大的客戶參與技術來推動創新和生產力，所有這些都是為客戶價值服務的。我們越來越多地看到供應商整合的趨勢，我們認為我們將從中受益，特別是，客戶來到 Braze 尋求通過一個同時全面的平台加強他們的客戶參與套件，同時直觀地集成並由實時數據提供支持.

These customers are moving from a disparate collection of marketing software, separately sending e-mail, SMS, push notifications and in-product messaging, all with siloed analytics and complex user data tracking. With Braze, customers ranging in size from small digital start-ups up to some of the world's large enterprises can cost effectively consolidate their customer engagement efforts into 1 solution, breaking down silos between channels and teams, simplifying their technical architectures and improving outcomes for customers.

這些客戶不再使用不同的營銷軟件，分別發送電子郵件、短信、推送通知和產品內消息，所有這些都帶有孤立的分析和復雜的用戶數據跟踪。借助 Braze，從小型數字初創企業到世界上一些大型企業的各種規模的客戶都可以經濟高效地將他們的客戶參與工作整合到一個解決方案中，打破渠道和團隊之間的孤島，簡化他們的技術架構並改善客戶的成果.

In one particular new business win with an athletics retailer this quarter, we replaced 3 separate vendors, signing a deal across an array of channels, including e-mail, push, web and content cards. In another case, with traditional media company, we replaced the legacy marketing cloud and 3 other messaging vendors as they modernize their customer engagement platform with Braze.

在本季度與一家體育用品零售商贏得的一項特別新業務中，我們更換了 3 家獨立的供應商，通過一系列渠道簽署了一項協議，包括電子郵件、推送、網絡和內容卡。在另一個案例中，對於傳統媒體公司，我們取代了傳統營銷雲和其他 3 家消息傳遞供應商，因為他們使用 Braze 對其客戶參與平台進行了現代化改造。

We expect this trend to continue as enterprises with ambition and sophistication consolidate their technology ecosystem with modern omnichannel customer engagement solutions, removing legacy marketing clouds and point solutions that don't scale, which we believe will provide a tailwind for Braze in the coming years. In another proof point of our leadership in the industry, I'm pleased to highlight that Braze was recently named a leader in the Q1 2023 Forrester Wave for Cross-Channel Marketing Hubs.

我們預計這一趨勢將繼續下去，因為有雄心和成熟的企業將其技術生態系統與現代全渠道客戶參與解決方案整合，消除遺留的營銷雲和無法擴展的點解決方案，我們相信這將在未來幾年為 Braze 提供順風。我很高興地強調，Braze 最近被評為 2023 年第一季度 Forrester Wave 跨渠道營銷中心領導者，這是我們在行業中處於領先地位的另一個證明。

Their coverage of Braze should resonate with those who have been listening in on our earnings calls the last few quarters. So let me just read directly from Forrester's report. "Braze lives up to its Start Anywhere, Go Everywhere product vision via innovative products and expert services to help its clients build human connections with their customers regardless of size or technical competence. Its superior innovation road map reflects these concepts by balancing investments across ease of use, platform depth and workflow flexibility." They continued by saying that, "Braze suits organizations looking for a flexible and marketer-friendly cross-channel marketing hub solution to refresh their digital experience strategy."

他們對 Braze 的報導應該會引起那些在過去幾個季度一直在收聽我們財報電話會議的人的共鳴。因此，讓我直接閱讀 Forrester 的報告。 “Braze 實現了它的 Start Anywhere，Go Everywhere 產品願景，通過創新產品和專家服務幫助其客戶與客戶建立人際關係，無論其規模或技術能力如何。其卓越的創新路線圖通過平衡投資與易用性來反映這些概念使用、平台深度和工作流程靈活性。”他們繼續說道，“Braze 適合尋求靈活且對營銷人員友好的跨渠道營銷中心解決方案以更新其數字體驗戰略的組織。”

Next, I'd like to briefly highlight our recently announced strategic partnership with WPP, a leading creative transformation and services agency. Together, we'll be partnering on joint product and solution development and integrations aimed at helping brands resolve customer identities at scale and power personalized engagement, alongside coordinated go-to-market efforts to help clients make investments in customer activation, retention and loyalty. We look forward to partnering with WPP and deepening our relationships with other agencies and GSIs to create better outcomes for our customers.

接下來，我想簡要介紹一下我們最近宣布的與領先的創意轉型和服務機構 WPP 的戰略合作夥伴關係。我們將共同合作進行聯合產品和解決方案開發與集成，旨在幫助品牌大規模解決客戶身份問題並推動個性化參與，同時協調上市工作，幫助客戶在客戶激活、保留和忠誠度方面進行投資。我們期待與 WPP 合作，深化我們與其他機構和 GSI 的關係，為我們的客戶創造更好的成果。

As we look to the future, we will continue to improve our platform and build our competitive moat. Artificial intelligence is a key component of that innovation push. Those that closely follow Braze know we were founded by 2 engineers, myself and our CTO, Jon Hyman, and that existing on the cutting edge of technology innovation is in our very DNA.

展望未來，我們將繼續完善我們的平台，打造我們的競爭護城河。人工智能是推動創新的關鍵組成部分。那些密切關注 Braze 的人都知道我們是由 2 位工程師創建的，我和我們的 CTO Jon Hyman，並且存在於技術創新的前沿是我們的 DNA。

Let me walk you through a few of our existing AI developments and how we plan to leverage AI to drive customer engagement in the future. In 2017, we invested in a dedicated team of data engineers and data scientists focused on using machine learning to build AI into the product, making marketers more effective in engaging their end users by optimizing timing and targeting strategies, inspiring new ideas to enhance relevance for customers and when possible, automating decisions entirely. In May of 2022, we started investing in generative AI as a marketer copilot, building GPT-3 into Braze for AI copywriting, which saves customers' time when creating subject lines and messaging for their campaigns.

讓我向您介紹我們現有的一些 AI 開發，以及我們計劃如何利用 AI 來推動未來的客戶參與。 2017 年，我們投資了一支由數據工程師和數據科學家組成的專門團隊，專注於使用機器學習將 AI 構建到產品中，使營銷人員通過優化時間和目標策略更有效地吸引最終用戶，激發新想法以增強與客戶，並在可能的情況下完全自動化決策。 2022 年 5 月，我們作為營銷副駕駛開始投資生成 AI，將 GPT-3 構建到 Braze 中以進行 AI 文案寫作，從而節省客戶在為其活動創建主題行和消息傳遞時的時間。

Last December, we integrated DALL-E into our image library and customers have been using both very effectively to be more agile, speed creative production and more easily test and optimize content for different variants.

去年 12 月，我們將 DALL-E 集成到我們的圖像庫中，客戶一直在非常有效地使用兩者來提高敏捷性、加快創意製作並更輕鬆地測試和優化不同變體的內容。

We're very excited about the potential for these tools to enable even small marketing teams to wield an immersive creative vision while also making it easier for them to take advantage of Braze's sophisticated and differentiated testing capabilities by lowering their creative production burden.

我們對這些工具的潛力感到非常興奮，即使是小型營銷團隊也能發揮身臨其境的創意願景，同時也讓他們更容易通過降低創意製作負擔來利用 Braze 複雜和差異化的測試功能。

We have also already seen examples of ChatGPT's successful leverage to generate valid message templating syntax and to speed along integration with source code samples. This is a set of capabilities that enhance the efficiency of our product support and further accelerate time to value for our customers. We're also experimenting with customizations of GPT-4, which are aware of Braze's support knowledge base and up-to-date documentation in order to enable a wider swath of Braze users to leverage our most advanced capabilities more quickly.

我們還已經看到了 ChatGPT 成功利用生成有效消息模板語法並加快與源代碼示例集成的示例。這是一組功能，可以提高我們產品支持的效率，並進一步加快為我們的客戶實現價值的時間。我們還在試驗 GPT-4 的定制，這些定制了解 Braze 的支持知識庫和最新文檔，以便讓更多的 Braze 用戶能夠更快地利用我們最先進的功能。

And as we discussed with you in October, at our first Investor Day, we've also introduced new machine learning features designed to improve outcomes in Braze campaigns and campuses. We introduced personalized variant to automatically determine, for each individual message recipient, which content variation they will most likely engage with based on data from consumers with similar behaviors and profiles. And we've expanded our predictive suite to use sophisticated machine learning to identify which users are most likely to churn or make a purchase. This generates models that are customized to each brand's usage fingerprint, a solution that adapts to work effectively across different industries and business models.

正如我們在 10 月份與您討論的那樣，在我們的第一個投資者日，我們還引入了新的機器學習功能，旨在改善 Braze 活動和校園的成果。我們引入了個性化變體，以根據來自具有相似行為和個人資料的消費者的數據，為每個單獨的消息接收者自動確定他們最有可能參與的內容變體。我們還擴展了我們的預測套件，以使用複雜的機器學習來確定哪些用戶最有可能流失或購買。這會生成根據每個品牌的使用指紋定制的模型，這是一種適用於跨不同行業和商業模式有效工作的解決方案。

Finally, we are using machine learning-driven predictive models designed to improve our quality of service while lowering our infrastructure costs. Auto Scaling is a technique we've used for years to adapt the cloud footprint of our stream processor in response to dynamic messaging workloads. We recently enhanced it to use machine learning to automatically predict upcoming load based on customer usage and a wide array of historical data.

最後，我們正在使用機器學習驅動的預測模型來提高我們的服務質量，同時降低我們的基礎設施成本。 Auto Scaling 是我們多年來使用的一項技術，用於調整我們的流處理器的雲足跡以響應動態消息傳遞工作負載。我們最近對其進行了增強，使用機器學習根據客戶使用情況和大量歷史數據自動預測即將到來的負載。

Early tests have shown the potential for meaningful reductions in our infrastructure costs as we continue to drive efficiencies in our core tech stack. You can expect that Braze will continue developing AI- and ML-driven products and service enhancements throughout the surface area of our platform in the coming months and years.

早期測試表明，隨著我們繼續提高核心技術堆棧的效率，我們的基礎設施成本有可能顯著降低。您可以預期，在未來數月和數年內，Braze 將在我們平台的整個表面區域繼續開發 AI 和 ML 驅動的產品和服務增強功能。

Finally, and before I turn it over to Isabelle, I'd like to spend a moment to discuss some exciting news we announced earlier this afternoon. We have entered into an agreement to acquire North Star, our exclusive reseller of Braze technology in the Australian and New Zealand markets. We have been working with their team for several years and have been impressed by their ability to drive adoption of our industry-leading solution across the region. We estimate this transaction will close in our fiscal second quarter, and we look forward to updating you on the progress in the region in the coming quarters.

最後，在我把它交給伊莎貝爾之前，我想花點時間討論一下我們今天下午早些時候宣布的一些令人振奮的消息。我們已經達成協議，收購我們在澳大利亞和新西蘭市場的 Braze 技術獨家經銷商 North Star。我們與他們的團隊合作了數年，他們在推動整個地區採用我們行業領先的解決方案方面的能力給我們留下了深刻的印象。我們估計這筆交易將在我們的第二財季完成，我們期待著在未來幾個季度向您通報該地區的最新進展。

Thank you for your continued support of Braze. We are very excited about the year ahead and believe the investments in our products, coupled with the strong secular customer engagement tailwinds, will keep Braze on the path to becoming the industry standard for customer engagement. And now I'll turn the call over to Isabelle.

感謝您一直以來對 Braze 的支持。我們對未來一年感到非常興奮，並相信對我們產品的投資，加上強大的長期客戶參與順風，將使 Braze 走上成為客戶參與行業標準的道路。現在我會把電話轉給伊莎貝爾。

Thank you, Bill, and thank you, everyone, for joining us today. As Bill mentioned, we reported a strong fourth quarter with revenue up 40% year-over-year to $98.7 million. This was driven by a combination of existing customer contract expansion, renewals and new business. Our subscription revenue remains the primary component of our total top line, contributing 96% of fourth quarter revenue. The remaining 4% represents a combination of onetime configuration and onboarding fees as well as other professional services. Total customer count increased 29% year-over-year to 1,770 customers as of January 31, up 395 from the same period last year and up 55 from the prior quarter.

謝謝比爾，也謝謝大家今天加入我們。正如 Bill 提到的那樣，我們報告第四季度業績強勁，收入同比增長 40% 至 9870 萬美元。這是由現有客戶合同擴展、續約和新業務共同推動的。我們的訂閱收入仍然是我們總收入的主要組成部分，佔第四季度收入的 96%。剩餘的 4% 代表一次性配置和入職費用以及其他專業服務的組合。截至 1 月 31 日，客戶總數同比增長 29% 至 1,770 名客戶，比去年同期增加 395 名，比上一季度增加 55 名。

Our total number of large customers, which we define as those spending at least $500,000 annually, grew 46% year-over-year to 156, and as of January 31 contributed 57% to our total ARR compared to a 52% contribution as of the same time last year. Compared to last quarter, this reflects a 5% increase from 148 large customers that contributed 56% of our total ARR as of October 31.

我們的大客戶總數（我們定義為每年花費至少 500,000 美元的客戶）同比增長 46% 至 156 家，截至 1 月 31 日，對我們總 ARR 的貢獻率為 57%，而截至去年同一時間。與上一季度相比，截至 10 月 31 日，148 家大客戶貢獻了我們總 ARR 的 56%，增長了 5%。

Measured across all customers, dollar-based net retention was 124%, while dollar-based net retention for our large customers, those spending at least $500,000 annually, was 126%. Expansion was broadly distributed across industries and geographic regions. Revenue outside the U.S. contributed 43% of our total revenue in the fourth quarter in line with the prior quarter and up from 40% at the end of fiscal year 2022.

對所有客戶進行衡量，基於美元的淨保留率為 124%，而我們的大客戶（每年花費至少 500,000 美元）的基於美元的淨保留率為 126%。擴張廣泛分佈於各個行業和地理區域。美國以外的收入在第四季度占我們總收入的 43%，與上一季度持平，高於 2022 財年末的 40%。

In the fourth quarter, our total remaining performance obligation was $456 million, up 22% year-over-year and up 11% sequentially. Current RPO was $313 million, up 31% year-over-year and up 10% sequentially. The year-over-year increase was driven by contract renewals and upsells and the signing of new customer contracts. Overall, dollar-weighted contract length remains at approximately 2 years. Now I'll review the income statement in more detail. As a reminder, some of the metrics I will discuss are non-GAAP.

第四季度，我們的剩餘履約義務總額為 4.56 億美元，同比增長 22%，環比增長 11%。當前 RPO 為 3.13 億美元，同比增長 31%，環比增長 10%。同比增長是由合同續籤和追加銷售以及新客戶合同的簽署推動的。總體而言，美元加權合同期限保持在大約 2 年。現在我將更詳細地審查損益表。提醒一下，我將討論的一些指標是非 GAAP 指標。

We've provided a reconciliation of GAAP to non-GAAP financials in our earnings release and accompanying earnings presentation. Non-GAAP gross profit in the quarter was $66.2 million, representing a non-GAAP gross margin of 67%. This compares to a non-GAAP gross profit of $47.3 million and non-GAAP gross margin of 67.2% in the fourth quarter of last year and 69.7% in the third quarter of this year.

我們在收益發布和隨附的收益報告中提供了 GAAP 與非 GAAP 財務的對賬。本季度非美國通用會計準則毛利潤為 6620 萬美元，非美國通用會計準則毛利率為 67%。相比之下，去年第四季度非美國通用會計準則毛利潤為 4730 萬美元，非美國通用會計準則毛利率為 67.2%，今年第三季度為 69.7%。

In addition to normal seasonality, which reduces gross margin in Q4 due to higher levels of customer activity, our cost of revenue in Q4 included the impact of a onetime expense true-up. Excluding this impact, Q4 non-GAAP gross profit was $67.5 million, representing a non-GAAP gross margin of 68.4%, up 120 basis points year-over-year due to continued economies of scale in our core technology expenses and ongoing efficiencies related to our customer support functions.

除了由於客戶活動水平較高而導致第四季度毛利率降低的正常季節性因素外，我們第四季度的收入成本還包括一次性費用調整的影響。排除這一影響，第四季度非美國通用會計準則毛利潤為 6750 萬美元，非美國通用會計準則毛利率為 68.4%，同比增長 120 個基點，這是由於我們核心技術支出的持續規模經濟以及與我們的客戶支持功能。

Turning to operating expenses. Non-GAAP sales and marketing expense was $46.5 million or 47% of revenue compared to $35.3 million or 50% of revenue in the prior year quarter. While the dollar increase reflects our investment in headcount to support our ongoing growth, global expansion and increased travel and entertainment expenses, the improved efficiency reflects our disciplined investment approach to resource deployment across our go-to-market organization.

轉向運營費用。非 GAAP 銷售和營銷費用為 4650 萬美元，佔收入的 47%，而去年同期為 3530 萬美元，佔收入的 50%。雖然美元的增長反映了我們為支持持續增長、全球擴張和增加的差旅和娛樂費用而對員工人數的投資，但效率的提高反映了我們在進入市場的組織中對資源部署的嚴格投資方法。

Non-GAAP R&D expense was $19 million or 19% of revenue compared to $13.1 million or 19% of revenue in the prior year quarter. The dollar increase was primarily driven by increased headcount to support the expansion of our existing offerings as well as to develop new products and features to drive growth. Non-GAAP G&A expense was $17.5 million or 18% of revenue compared to $12.4 million or 18% of revenue in the prior year quarter. The dollar increase was driven by investments to support our overall company growth and public company expenses. Non-GAAP operating loss was $16.7 million compared to a non-GAAP operating loss of $13.4 million in the prior year quarter.

非 GAAP 研發費用為 1900 萬美元或占收入的 19%，而去年同期為 1310 萬美元或占收入的 19%。美元增長的主要原因是增加了員工人數以支持我們現有產品的擴展以及開發新產品和功能以推動增長。非 GAAP G&A 費用為 1750 萬美元，佔收入的 18%，而去年同期為 1240 萬美元，佔收入的 18%。美元的增長是由支持我們整體公司增長和上市公司支出的投資推動的。非 GAAP 營業虧損為 1,670 萬美元，而去年同期的非 GAAP 營業虧損為 1,340 萬美元。

Non-GAAP net loss attributable to Braze shareholders in the quarter was $13.7 million or a loss of $0.14 per share based on 95 million weighted average basic shares outstanding during the period. This compares to a loss of $13.8 million or a loss of $0.18 per share based on 78.4 million weighted average basic shares outstanding in the prior year quarter. Now turning to the balance sheet and cash flow statement.

本季度歸屬於 Braze 股東的非 GAAP 淨虧損為 1370 萬美元，或根據該期間 9500 萬股已發行加權平均基本股計算每股虧損 0.14 美元。相比之下，去年同期虧損 1380 萬美元或每股虧損 0.18 美元，基於 7840 萬股已發行加權平均基本股。現在轉向資產負債表和現金流量表。

We ended the quarter with $482.7 million in cash, cash equivalents, restricted cash and marketable securities. Cash provided by operations during the quarter was just over $12,000 compared to a use of approximately $24.5 million in the prior year quarter, driven by lower net loss and positive changes in working capital. Free cash flow was negative $1.9 million in the quarter compared to a negative $26 million in the year ago quarter. As we have stated in previous quarters, we expect our free cash flow to fluctuate from quarter-to-quarter given the timing of customer and vendor payments.

本季度末，我們擁有 4.827 億美元的現金、現金等價物、受限制的現金和有價證券。本季度運營提供的現金略多於 12,000 美元，而去年同期使用的現金約為 2,450 萬美元，這是受淨虧損減少和營運資金積極變化的推動。本季度自由現金流為負 190 萬美元，而去年同期為負 2600 萬美元。正如我們在前幾個季度所說的那樣，鑑於客戶和供應商付款的時間，我們預計我們的自由現金流會隨季度波動。

And now turning to our forecast. We continue to see solid interest in high-quality customer engagement solutions, tempered by macroeconomic headwinds that persist in a number of geographic regions and industry verticals. Like many of our peers, we continue to experience elongated sales cycles and slower new business growth. As such, our guidance assumes an elevated level of conservatism and that the current macro environment persists throughout fiscal 2024. As we navigate this fiscal year, we will continue to maintain cost discipline and believe that we are well positioned to make significant progress towards our long-term operating targets outlined last October.

現在轉向我們的預測。我們繼續看到對高質量客戶參與解決方案的濃厚興趣，受到許多地理區域和垂直行業持續存在的宏觀經濟逆風的影響。與我們的許多同行一樣，我們繼續經歷銷售週期延長和新業務增長放緩的情況。因此，我們的指引假設保守主義水平較高，並且當前的宏觀環境將持續整個 2024 財年。在我們度過本財年的過程中，我們將繼續保持成本紀律，並相信我們有能力在實現長期目標方面取得重大進展- 去年 10 月概述的長期運營目標。

For the first quarter, we expect revenue to be in the range of $98.5 million to $99.5 million, which represents a year-over-year growth rate of approximately 28% at the midpoint. As a reminder, our first quarter contains 89 days or 3 fewer days compared to the other 3 quarters of the year, which each contain 92 days. Because we recognize revenue ratably over the course of the year, the Q1 day count is reflected in our revenue guidance.

對於第一季度，我們預計收入將在 9850 萬美元至 9950 萬美元之間，按中點計算，同比增長率約為 28%。提醒一下，我們的第一季度有 89 天，比一年中其他 3 個季度的 92 天少了 3 天。因為我們在一年中按比例確認收入，所以第一季度的天數反映在我們的收入指導中。

First quarter non-GAAP operating loss is expected to be in the range of $19 million to $20 million. First quarter non-GAAP net loss is expected to be $17 million to $18 million, and first quarter non-GAAP net loss per share in the range of $0.18 to $0.19 per share based on approximately 96.2 million weighted average basic shares outstanding during the period.

第一季度非 GAAP 營業虧損預計在 1900 萬至 2000 萬美元之間。第一季度非 GAAP 淨虧損預計為 1700 萬美元至 1800 萬美元，基於該期間約 9620 萬股已發行的加權平均基本股，第一季度非 GAAP 每股淨虧損在 0.18 美元至 0.19 美元之間。

For the full fiscal year 2024, we expect total revenue to be in the range of $433 million to $438 million, which represents a year-over-year growth rate of approximately 23% at the midpoint. Fiscal year 2024 non-GAAP operating loss is expected to be in the range of $57 million to $61 million. Non-GAAP net loss for the same period is expected to be in the range of $53 million to $57 million. For fiscal year 2024, non-GAAP net loss per share is expected to be $0.55 to $0.59 per share based on a full year weighted average basic share count of approximately 97.1 million shares.

對於整個 2024 財年，我們預計總收入將在 4.33 億美元至 4.38 億美元之間，按中點計算，同比增長率約為 23%。 2024 財年非 GAAP 營業虧損預計在 5700 萬至 6100 萬美元之間。同期非 GAAP 淨虧損預計在 5300 萬美元至 5700 萬美元之間。根據約 9710 萬股的全年加權平均基本股數，預計 2024 財年每股非 GAAP 淨虧損為 0.55 美元至 0.59 美元。

As we look further out, we are focused on growing revenue while improving operating income and free cash flow margins and expect Braze will generate positive quarterly non-GAAP operating income and positive quarterly free cash flow in the fiscal year ended January 31, 2025.

展望未來，我們專注於增加收入，同時提高營業收入和自由現金流利潤率，並預計 Braze 將在截至 2025 年 1 月 31 日的財政年度產生正的季度非 GAAP 營業收入和正的季度自由現金流。

In addition, we expect our non-GAAP operating income margin in Q4 of this year to be negative 7% or better. I'll conclude by reiterating our excitement in Braze's future. We are focused on growing our business, partnering with customers to help them achieve incredible customer engagement outcomes while effectively managing our expenses to achieve our long-term financial targets.

此外，我們預計今年第四季度的非美國通用會計準則營業利潤率為負 7% 或更高。最後，我要重申我們對 Braze 未來的興奮。我們專注於發展我們的業務，與客戶合作以幫助他們實現令人難以置信的客戶參與成果，同時有效地管理我們的費用以實現我們的長期財務目標。

And with that, we'll now open the call for questions. Operator, please begin the Q&A.

有了這個，我們現在將開始提問。接線員，請開始問答。

(Operator Instructions) Our first question comes from DJ Hynes at Canaccord.

（操作員說明）我們的第一個問題來自 Canaccord 的 DJ Hynes。

Bill, first for you. Look, with more accessibility to third-party streaming data solutions and then continued advancements in AI and ML, are you seeing any signs that legacy Marketing Cloud customers are figuring out workarounds to make their existing solutions any more productive? I'm just trying to think about like implications for willingness or appetite to swap out existing marketing infrastructure and move to somebody like Braze.

比爾，首先是你。看，隨著對第三方流數據解決方案的更多訪問以及 AI 和 ML 的不斷進步，您是否看到任何跡象表明傳統 Marketing Cloud 客戶正在尋找變通辦法來提高他們現有解決方案的生產力？我只是想考慮對換掉現有營銷基礎設施並轉向像 Braze 這樣的人的意願或興趣的類似影響。

Yes. Thanks for the question. I mean first, I would highlight the vendor consolidation trends that I just spoke about a little bit ago. In both of those cases, we're seeing legacy Marketing Cloud and Point Solution deployments that are consolidating on to Braze. And I think that's showing you 2 things. One is that replacement cycle, legacy tool. And two, the fact that there was a legacy Marketing Cloud alongside Point Solutions in their original deployment means that they're just not delivering across the touch points in the channels that modern customer engagement requires and demands.

是的。謝謝你的問題。我的意思是，首先，我要強調我剛才談到的供應商整合趨勢。在這兩種情況下，我們都看到傳統的 Marketing Cloud 和 Point Solution 部署正在整合到 Braze 上。我認為這向您展示了兩件事。一個是更換週期，遺留工具。第二，在他們最初的部署中有一個遺留的 Marketing Cloud 和 Point Solutions 這一事實意味著他們只是沒有在現代客戶參與需要和要求的渠道中跨接觸點交付。

We're similarly seeing -- and I highlighted this about the travel and hospitality industry, but across verticals that have been a little bit slower to move over, we're starting to see that legacy marketing tool, and it's not just legacy marketing clouds. We're also seeing some other software that was, in the last generation, getting wholesale replaced in the enterprise. And increasingly, what we're seeing is that the default for that is not moving to one of those legacy Marketing Clouds, but moving over to Braze.

我們同樣看到——我強調了關於旅遊和酒店業的這一點，但在移動速度稍慢的垂直領域，我們開始看到傳統的營銷工具，而不僅僅是傳統的營銷雲.我們還看到一些其他軟件，在上一代中，在企業中被批量替換。而且，我們越來越多地看到，默認情況下並沒有轉移到那些遺留的營銷雲之一，而是轉移到 Braze。

And when we look at AI within that -- and I can speak about this more later, I'm sure I'm going to get more questions around AI and ML before we finish this call. But I think that because we have access to a more complete picture of the customer, combined with the ability to directly interact with them, and we have our vertically integrated real-time data flow and the comprehensiveness across those customer touch points and messaging channels, that puts us in a position in the technology stack with respect to the data flow and access to it in real time as well as comprehensiveness of the entire picture of the first-party data that will just allow us to have more substantially more flexibility and optionality in what we build out from an AI, ML perspective into the future.

當我們在其中審視 AI 時——我可以稍後再談這個，我相信在我們結束這次電話會議之前，我會收到更多關於 AI 和 ML 的問題。但我認為，因為我們可以更全面地了解客戶，並能夠直接與他們互動，而且我們擁有垂直整合的實時數據流，以及跨越這些客戶接觸點和消息渠道的全面性，這使我們在數據流和實時訪問以及第一方數據全貌的全面性方面處於技術堆棧中的位置，這將使我們具有更大的靈活性和可選性在我們從人工智能、機器學習的角度構建的未來。

Yes, helpful color. And then Isabelle, one for you. Just in terms of the guidance, like what are your expectations in terms of the mix of growth from the base, so NRR versus contribution from net new in fiscal 2024 that gets you to that midpoint 23% growth guidance?

是的，有用的顏色。然後是伊莎貝爾，一個給你。就指導而言，比如你對基礎增長組合的預期是什麼，所以 NRR 與 2024 財年淨新的貢獻讓你達到 23% 的增長指導的中點？

Yes, thanks for the question. So first of all, I just want to say, I think, we've been performing very well against an increasingly tough environment here that we've been seeing over the course of this past year. And we're seeing the same dynamics that a lot of our peers are seeing with regards to elevated levels of deal scrutiny, certainly when it comes to kind of that net new business and then continuations of these elongated deal cycles.

是的，謝謝你的提問。所以首先，我只想說，我認為，我們在過去一年中看到的日益嚴峻的環境中表現得非常好。我們看到許多同行在交易審查水平提高方面看到的相同動態，當然是在涉及那種淨新業務以及這些延長的交易週期的延續時。

So I think we are going to continue, and we've incorporated into our guide a good degree of conservatism across a number of fronts. And so specifically across a number of KPIs, we have incorporated the expectation that we'll see some further degradation. That's true for pipeline generation and, therefore, some ongoing weakness in kind of net new business. Conversion rates, win rates, the deal cycle length, we think will continue to stay long or we've assumed that rather in the context of our guide. We're assuming limited improvements to sales productivity. This is all embedded in the guidance.

所以我認為我們將繼續，並且我們已經在我們的指南中納入了在許多方面的良好程度的保守主義。因此，特別是在許多 KPI 中，我們已經納入了我們將看到進一步退化的預期。這對於管道生成來說是正確的，因此，在淨新業務方面存在一些持續的弱點。轉化率、中標率、交易週期長度，我們認為將繼續保持很長時間，或者我們在指南的上下文中假設了這一點。我們假設銷售效率的改善有限。這些都包含在指南中。

And so I think it's fair to say that we do expect, in the context of the guide, for the net new business to continue to struggle. We've also been able to incorporate the events of kind of the last few weeks that have led to a little bit more market disruption and a little bit more uncertainty and maybe how net new buyer behavior and net new investment is going to behave over the coming months and quarters.

因此，我認為可以公平地說，在指南的背景下，我們確實希望淨新業務繼續掙扎。我們還能夠納入過去幾週導致更多市場混亂和更多不確定性的事件，以及淨新買家行為和淨新投資將如何表現未來幾個月和幾個季度。

And as a result of that, we feel really comfortable with where our guidance is right now against many of the possible scenarios that might play out for FY '24.

因此，我們對我們目前針對 24 財年可能出現的許多可能情況的指導感到非常滿意。

I'll just add that in general, obviously, the environment has been super dynamic, and it's been challenging to operate in. But that said, I'm really optimistic about where we are as a business and also how we're positioned in the ecosystem. We've been focused, especially over the last couple of quarters, on preparing for the world as it is, but doing that while also setting us up for long-term success. And qualitatively, I've never been more excited about our position.

我只想補充一點，總的來說，很明顯，環境非常動態，在其中運營一直充滿挑戰。但話雖如此，我對我們作為一家企業所處的位置以及我們在其中的定位非常樂觀生態系統。我們一直專注於為世界的現狀做準備，尤其是在過去幾個季度，但這樣做的同時也為我們的長期成功做好了準備。從質量上講，我對我們的地位從未如此興奮過。

When you look at things like our product road map and the momentum there with things like cloud data ingestion or the recent launch of WhatsApp. You may have seen the announcement that came out yesterday about the partnership with WPP, which is exciting all its own. But it's also a bellwether for our continued progress with the GSIs. Our go-to-market investments and the trends that I just highlighted around the replacement cycle for legacy tools and vendor consolidation, these are all things that really build the foundation that we're going to build Braze into the future on.

當您查看我們的產品路線圖以及雲數據攝取或最近推出 WhatsApp 等方面的勢頭時。您可能已經看到昨天發布的關於與 WPP 合作的公告，這本身就令人興奮。但它也是我們在 GSI 方面持續取得進展的風向標。我們的上市投資以及我剛剛強調的圍繞遺留工具和供應商整合的更換週期的趨勢，這些都是真正為我們未來構建 Braze 奠定基礎的東西。

Now quantitatively, obviously, the environment is difficult, and you see that in the numbers across the industry. And as Isabelle mentioned, we're being very mindful of the events of the last couple of weeks and our experience in this environment so far and our guidance is informed by that. But we feel comfortable with the guide that we're providing.

現在從數量上看，很明顯，環境很困難，你可以從整個行業的數字中看到這一點。正如 Isabelle 所提到的，我們非常關注過去幾週發生的事件以及我們迄今為止在這種環境中的經驗，我們的指導就是以此為依據的。但我們對我們提供的指南感到滿意。

Yes, it makes sense. I think the prudence is logical.

是的，這是有道理的。我認為謹慎是合乎邏輯的。

And our next question comes from Ryan MacWilliams of Barclays.

我們的下一個問題來自巴克萊銀行的 Ryan MacWilliams。

Great to hear about the profitability improvement in the guidance and the fourth quarter exit margin rate was better than we expected. So if the macro stays current or similar to the current environment, do you have any updated thoughts about the potential path of profitability time line for Braze? And how do you think about making investments in this current macro backdrop?

很高興聽到指導中的盈利能力改善，第四季度退出利潤率好於我們的預期。因此，如果宏觀保持當前或與當前環境相似，您是否對 Braze 盈利時間線的潛在路徑有任何更新的想法？您如何看待在當前的宏觀背景下進行投資？

Yes, thanks for the question. So if we take you back to December, we made an announcement in December that we had broadly paused net growth in overall headcount. And think of that as actually staying -- we're staying the course on that. So that has not changed. And so we are able to sort of continue on with this sort of path to profitability and actually make meaningful progress this year because we have incredible amounts of kind of control and visibility into our overall spend for the balance of the year. And so we think that, that's actually a key driver for the path to profitability is being able to kind of stay the course.

是的，謝謝你的提問。因此，如果我們將您帶回到 12 月，我們在 12 月宣布我們已基本暫停總體員工淨增長。並將其視為實際停留——我們將堅持到底。所以這並沒有改變。因此，我們能夠繼續走這種盈利之路，並在今年取得有意義的進展，因為我們對今年餘下時間的總體支出擁有令人難以置信的控制力和可見性。所以我們認為，這實際上是盈利之路的關鍵驅動力，能夠堅持到底。

It's -- and it's actually been incredibly helpful for our leaders to have to reprioritize how they're going to deploy spend over the course of this year as we've maintained the headcount pause for -- the headcount increase pause for the time being. So I wouldn't look for us to materially expand net new investment over the balance of this year.

這實際上非常有幫助我們的領導者必須重新確定他們將如何在今年期間部署支出，因為我們一直保持員工人數暫停 - 暫時暫停員工人數增加。因此，我不希望我們在今年餘下時間大幅增加淨新投資。

Yes. And I'll just say that touching on the culture and how leadership has rallied around us and how our entire employee base has rallied around this move to profitability, we've been able to do it while also making great foundational investments. And that's just through a lot of the advantages that we have around our mastery of R&D and data as well as the adaptability of the employee base. I've been really proud of our employee culture through this transition, and it gives me not only great confidence for our path to profitability, but confidence for our future as we continue to build our leadership position in the space.

是的。我只想說，談到文化，領導層如何團結在我們周圍，以及我們的整個員工群體如何圍繞這一向盈利的轉變團結起來，我們已經能夠做到這一點，同時也進行了大量的基礎投資。這只是通過我們在研發和數據方面的掌握以及員工基礎的適應性方面所擁有的許多優勢。通過這次過渡，我為我們的員工文化感到非常自豪，它不僅讓我對我們的盈利之路充滿信心，而且隨著我們繼續在該領域建立領導地位而對我們的未來充滿信心。

And then one for Bill. Exiting the fourth quarter, how should we think about how the macro is currently impacting customer usage of the Braze platform? Because data points processes and messages sent still seem healthy at like mid-40% year-over-year growth rate. So would like to see how you're thinking about how different verticals or different customer sizes are currently faring.

然後一個給比爾。第四季度結束後，我們應該如何看待宏觀目前對 Braze 平台客戶使用的影響？因為數據點處理和發送的消息看起來仍然健康，年增長率約為 40%。所以想看看你是如何考慮不同的垂直行業或不同的客戶規模目前的表現如何。

Yes. I think this just points back to the reality that customer engagement is a really multifaceted operation that is always on in some extent. And I think that a lot of people look at marketing technology in general, and they think, oh, that's -- it's like advertising spend, it's discretionary, et cetera. The responsibility to be communicating with your customers isn't always on one. And especially as we see customers continue to expand into new use cases, as they take advantage of new feature development like your cloud data ingestion to bring in new data sets and drive yet more use cases and more messaging, we continue to see them expanding across multiple channels.

是的。我認為這只是回到了這樣一個現實，即客戶參與是一個真正多方面的操作，在某種程度上總是存在的。而且我認為很多人都在看一般的營銷技術，他們認為，哦，這就像廣告支出，它是可自由支配的，等等。與客戶溝通的責任並不總是在一個人身上。特別是當我們看到客戶繼續擴展到新用例時，因為他們利用新功能開發（例如您的雲數據攝取）來引入新數據集並推動更多用例和更多消息傳遞，我們繼續看到他們擴展到多個渠道。

There's just a lot of expansion in the surface area of the product. There's expansion of our customers as they find ROI in their early use cases and they expand into new ones. And then just the fact that so much of what Braze does is mission-critical communication in order to deliver products and services. I think that the secular trend toward being able to build up first-party relationships inform those first-party relationships with first-party data and then take action on them directly is one that's becoming an imperative for brands of all kinds across every vertical and of every size.

產品的表面積有很多擴展。我們的客戶不斷擴大，因為他們在早期用例中找到了投資回報率，並擴展到新的用例中。然後，事實上，Braze 所做的大部分工作都是為了交付產品和服務而進行的關鍵任務通信。我認為能夠建立第一方關係的長期趨勢是通過第一方數據告知這些第一方關係，然後直接對其採取行動，這對於各個垂直領域的各種品牌來說已經勢在必行每個尺寸。

And our next question comes from Arjun Bhatia with William Blair.

我們的下一個問題來自 Arjun Bhatia 和 William Blair。

Bill, maybe just to stick with you. You mentioned some of the AI investments that you've made over the past several years. But when you think about the advent of generative AI, what do you think that can do for the platform from a customer standpoint? Does it help you be more competitive? Does it drive more productivity for your customers? Just would love to get your thoughts on how this plays out over the next several years.

比爾，也許只是為了堅持你。你提到了過去幾年你所做的一些人工智能投資。但是，當您考慮生成式 AI 的出現時，您認為從客戶的角度來看，它可以為平台做些什麼？它能幫助您提高競爭力嗎？它是否為您的客戶提高了生產力？只是很想了解您對未來幾年的情況的看法。

Yes, absolutely. So I'll take a step back from just generative and give you kind of a framework for how we think about AI and ML and its influence in customer engagement in general. So you're effectively kind of bucketing things in a few ways. One is, is this a copilot for a human? Is it automated optimization? Or is it a full autopilot. And I think that the nature of first-party data and managing first-party relationships is that the bar for full autopilot is much higher than it is in things like advertising or even in areas like prospecting and B2B.

是的，一點沒錯。因此，我將從生成式退後一步，為您提供一個框架，說明我們如何看待 AI 和 ML 及其對客戶參與的總體影響。所以你實際上是在以幾種方式對事物進行分類。一是，這是人類的副駕駛嗎？是自動優化嗎？或者它是全自動駕駛儀。而且我認為第一方數據和管理第一方關係的本質是完全自動駕駛的門檻比廣告等領域甚至潛在客戶和 B2B 等領域要高得多。

And thus, you should expect to see the move towards something where you have like a magic black box or a full autopilot move a little bit more carefully in the first-party data space and the first-party relationship space. It's one thing to have an ad or an e-mail that's well targeted on someone that you -- or that's been crafted for someone that you don't know very well, it's very different to have that live inside of your own product experience.

因此，您應該期望看到在第一方數據空間和第一方關係空間中更加謹慎地朝著擁有神奇黑匣子或全自動駕駛儀的方向發展。將廣告或電子郵件很好地定位於您的某個人或為您不太了解的某個人製作的廣告或電子郵件是一回事，將其融入您自己的產品體驗中是非常不同的。

A related concept is systems that require training data and that you need to learn over time versus those that can be used immediately. We definitely balance our investments to make sure that we're delivering on both. Obviously, a lot of the generative AI stuff recently has been particularly special because much of it can be used immediately. It's easy to get up and running and learn and even the learning cycle when you're in the middle of a conversation in ChatGPT happens pretty quickly.

一個相關的概念是需要訓練數據並且您需要隨著時間的推移學習的系統與那些可以立即使用的系統。我們肯定會平衡我們的投資，以確保我們在兩者上都實現。顯然，最近很多生成人工智能的東西都特別特別，因為其中很多都可以立即使用。啟動、運行和學習都很容易，甚至當您在 ChatGPT 中進行對話時，學習週期也會很快發生。

We found that the systems, which learn over time are best suited for partial automation, especially for things like variant or full strategy testing for which Canvas is a really robust framework or other things like predictive intelligence targeting. And now I just mentioned earlier that Braze, I think, is uniquely positioned in our ecosystem to take full advantage of those types of developments because of the comprehensiveness of our touch points and the fact that we can just put our hands on data immediately when it's generated because of the vertically integrated real-time data flow. And so that more complete picture puts us in an enviable position to be able to take advantage of new AI and ML developments.

我們發現隨著時間的推移學習的系統最適合部分自動化，特別是對於變體或完整策略測試之類的事情，Canvas 是一個非常強大的框架或其他事情，例如預測智能目標。現在我剛才提到，我認為 Braze 在我們的生態系統中處於獨特的位置，可以充分利用這些類型的開發，因為我們接觸點的全面性以及我們可以在數據出現時立即處理數據這一事實由於垂直集成的實時數據流而產生。因此，更完整的畫面使我們處於令人羨慕的位置，能夠利用新的 AI 和 ML 發展。

Now kind of getting specifically on the generative side, one of the near-term places I'm most excited about is using predictive targeting and other ML-driven orchestration intelligence, which we already have in the platform and are certainly going to continue to develop more in the future to supercharge experimentation in particular. Because one of the barriers to experimentation for marketers is the creative production side. How do you actually produce 6 interesting, relevant, different ways of communicating a similar message to someone or evoking the same -- trying to encourage the same action? Pair that with things like image generation or video, and it gets even harder. And so that's where if we go back to my -- the framework that I broke out in the beginning, all of those are the aid of a creative copilot.

現在有點特別在生成方面，我最興奮的近期地方之一是使用預測目標和其他 ML 驅動的編排智能，我們已經在平台中擁有並且肯定會繼續開發將來會有更多特別是加強實驗。因為營銷人員進行實驗的障礙之一是創意製作方面。你如何實際產生 6 種有趣、相關、不同的方式來向某人傳達類似的信息或喚起相同的信息——試圖鼓勵相同的行動？將其與圖像生成或視頻等事物結合起來，它會變得更加困難。因此，如果我們回到我的 - 我一開始打破的框架，所有這些都是創造性副駕駛的幫助。

And so whether that's ChatGPT helping with the equivalent of writers block or it's DALL-E doing the same thing for images, and we expect that will come about for animated GIFs and video production capabilities pretty soon, those types of things are particularly important for our customers with smaller teams and less resources. But I think it actually helps everyone move faster and more efficiently, which helps Braze not only differentiate by opening up new use cases through our real-time capability, but it also augments the gains, which compound through experimentation.

因此，無論是 ChatGPT 幫助相當於作家封鎖，還是 DALL-E 對圖像做同樣的事情，我們預計動畫 GIF 和視頻製作功能很快就會出現，這些類型的事情對我們來說特別重要團隊規模較小、資源較少的客戶。但我認為它實際上可以幫助每個人更快、更有效地行動，這不僅有助於 Braze 通過我們的實時能力開闢新的用例來實現差異化，而且還增加了通過實驗複合的收益。

I think that the easier it is for customers to both produce multiple variants of strategies to test, and then we insert machine learning to help make that testing more effective, when you compound those learnings and those gains together, you really enhance ROI. And so those are -- I hope that gives you an idea of kind of how we think about it and what that road map is going to look like. There's definitely some unique aspects to Braze with respect to being first-party data, but also some really amazing advantages because of where we're positioned in the stack.

我認為客戶越容易產生多種策略來測試，然後我們插入機器學習來幫助使測試更有效，當你將這些學習和這些收益結合在一起時，你真的會提高投資回報率。所以這些是 - 我希望這能讓你了解我們如何看待它以及該路線圖的樣子。作為第一方數據，Braze 肯定有一些獨特的方面，但由於我們在堆棧中的位置，也有一些非常驚人的優勢。

Yes. That's very helpful. And then I wanted to touch on just geographic priorities because -- so you're making this acquisition in Australia, New Zealand. You've launched the WhatsApp integration. I'd love to hear how you think that might help drive further international expansion because it is obviously a key channel that users abroad, in Europe, LatAm, et cetera, use much more frequently than here in the States.

是的。這很有幫助。然後我想談談地理優先事項，因為 - 所以你在澳大利亞，新西蘭進行這次收購。您已經啟動了 WhatsApp 集成。我很想听聽您認為這可能有助於推動進一步的國際擴張，因為它顯然是歐洲、拉美等國外用戶使用頻率遠高於美國的關鍵渠道。

Yes, absolutely. I mean you'll -- I'll cite as well just a kind of foundational stat that 43% of our revenue comes from outside of the United States. And so as we know, Braze has a very global footprint. And because of the nature of mobile and the app stores and such, especially in our early days, we've always been a very global company. In fact, actually our second largest office is in London. So I like to say that the geographic center of Braze is somewhere over the North Atlantic.

是的，一點沒錯。我的意思是你會——我也會引用一種基本統計數據，即我們 43% 的收入來自美國以外的地區。因此，正如我們所知，Braze 的足跡遍及全球。由於移動和應用程序商店等的性質，特別是在我們早期，我們一直是一家非常全球化的公司。事實上，實際上我們的第二大辦公室在倫敦。所以我想說 Braze 的地理中心在北大西洋的某個地方。

And that global exposure and footprint is a particular reason why I'm most excited about WhatsApp within Braze, especially vis-a-vis a lot of the competition that you see in the marketing tech space who, in general, you see a huge concentration in their SMS being in the United States. And so when we can take our differentiated WhatsApp capability and we can multiply that by our international footprint, I think it's got a lot of exciting potential.

全球曝光度和足跡是我對 Braze 中的 WhatsApp 最興奮的一個特殊原因，尤其是與你在營銷技術領域看到的許多競爭相比，一般來說，你會看到高度集中在他們的短信中是在美國。因此，當我們能夠利用我們與眾不同的 WhatsApp 功能並將其乘以我們的國際足跡時，我認為它具有很多令人興奮的潛力。

Our next question comes from Jake Titleman with Goldman Sachs.

我們的下一個問題來自高盛的 Jake Titleman。

It sounds like Braze is experiencing many of the same macro headwinds as other software companies, but it would be good to get an update on the win rates you're seeing. And maybe you can comment on how those win rates are trending with both larger and smaller customers, especially because we've heard that some of the smaller private players are really pulling the pricing lever to try and win new business.

聽起來 Braze 正在經歷許多與其他軟件公司相同的宏觀逆風，但最好能了解您所看到的贏率的最新情況。也許你可以評論一下這些贏率是如何隨著大客戶和小客戶的趨勢而變化的，特別是因為我們聽說一些較小的私人玩家真的在拉動定價槓桿來嘗試贏得新業務。

Yes. So there are some great things that we've been seeing from a competition standpoint. First, the vendor consolidation momentum has been really positive for us. We also continue to win at higher prices and head-to-heads because we are effectively value selling. We've spoken a lot about our go-to-market investment that we've been making over the last few quarters, and I've been excited to see the results from that. We're operating with less opportunities to go around, which I think because of the macro, everyone is, we're definitely seeing more desperate tactics from competitors.

是的。因此，從競爭的角度來看，我們已經看到了一些很棒的事情。首先，供應商整合勢頭對我們來說非常積極。我們還繼續以更高的價格和正面交鋒獲勝，因為我們有效地進行了價值銷售。我們已經談了很多關於我們在過去幾個季度進行的上市投資，我很高興看到結果。我們的經營機會越來越少，我認為這是因為宏觀，每個人都是，我們肯定會看到來自競爭對手的更絕望的策略。

And frankly, we're actually seeing those desperate tactics from competitors that are both large and small. But we don't see anything that is fundamentally changing the competitive landscape. I'd also say that even those competitors, who are progressing by trying to imitate our feature set, they're still built on either old or cheap and incomplete architectures, which simply means that their attempts to fast follow us and try to sell at lower prices are eventually going to hit a wall. And in the meantime, we're going to keep innovating and leading the way.

坦率地說，我們實際上看到了來自大大小小的競爭對手的那些孤注一擲的策略。但我們看不到任何從根本上改變競爭格局的事情。我還要說的是，即使是那些通過模仿我們的功能集取得進步的競爭對手，他們仍然建立在舊的或廉價且不完整的架構上，這僅僅意味著他們試圖快速跟隨我們並試圖以較低的價格最終會碰壁。與此同時，我們將繼續創新並引領潮流。

You know from our track record that we don't do margin-dilutive deals, and we're seeing those win rates improve or hold up, depending on which category we're operating in. It is definitely a dynamic competitive landscape. And as I mentioned, there are less opportunities to go around before and that's having predictable second order effects from our competitive cohorts, but we feel really good about where we're positioned, especially over the longer term.

你從我們的往績中知道，我們不做稀釋利潤的交易，我們看到這些贏率有所提高或保持不變，這取決於我們經營的類別。這絕對是一個充滿活力的競爭格局。正如我所提到的，以前的機會較少，這對我們的競爭群體產生了可預測的二階效應，但我們對自己的定位感到非常滿意，尤其是從長遠來看。

That's great. And then maybe you can comment on if you think this market slowdown has maybe concerned you at all that the TAM for an offering like Braze isn't as large as you previously thought. Maybe if not, you can talk about your conviction in the long-term fundamentals and why investors should not view the current environment as the new normal.

那太棒了。然後，如果您認為這種市場放緩可能讓您擔心，像 Braze 這樣的產品的 TAM 並不像您之前想像的那麼大，那麼您可以發表評論。也許如果沒有，您可以談談您對長期基本面的信念，以及為什麼投資者不應將當前環境視為新常態。

I would hold up 2 things here. First, as we referenced earlier on the call, we're seeing things like messaging and data volumes and such all hold up, which I think is a pretty clear sign that, that overall activity between brands and customers communicating with each other, it's not something that is a temporary phenomenon in business or in the lives of humans. But also when we just look at the secular and generational trends that are happening right now as we continue to digitize more and more of our lives, and really importantly to me is I think that we're still in the early innings of this move to first-party data.

我會在這裡舉起兩件事。首先，正如我們之前在電話會議上提到的那樣，我們看到諸如消息傳遞和數據量之類的東西都保持不變，我認為這是一個非常明確的跡象，表明品牌和客戶之間相互交流的整體活動，並不是商業或人類生活中的暫時現象。但是，當我們只是看看現在正在發生的世俗和代際趨勢時，我們繼續將越來越多的生活數字化，對我來說真正重要的是，我認為我們仍處於這一轉變的早期階段第一方數據。

The first kind of volley of investment in first-party data, I think, has been an understandable reaction to the fall of third-party data, the -- whether it's IDFA or the death of the cookie or what have you, you see brands trying to collect first-party data sets because they're trying to replace third-party data sets for things that they were doing before.

我認為，對第一方數據的第一種投資是對第三方數據下降的一種可以理解的反應——無論是 IDFA 還是 cookie 的死亡，或者你有什麼，你看品牌試圖收集第一方數據集，因為他們正試圖用第三方數據集替換他們之前所做的事情。

But the more important aspect of first-party data in these first-party relationships is that it takes the customer relationship, which, of course, de facto always exists in the ether. And it actually makes it directly actionable. The fact that you can understand the nature of your customer relationships and you can take action in order to enhance them directly, when you combine together an investment in first-party data with sophisticated and powerful customer engagement tools like Braze, is creating tremendous amounts of business value for those brands that are already investing in it.

但在這些第一方關係中，第一方數據更重要的方面是它需要客戶關係，當然，這種關係實際上一直存在於以太中。它實際上使它直接可操作。事實上，當您將對第一方數據的投資與 Braze 等複雜而強大的客戶參與工具相結合時，您可以了解客戶關係的性質並且可以採取行動直接增強它們，這正在創造大量的已經投資的品牌的商業價值。

And when I kind of look at the many secular trends that Braze has certainly benefited from over the years, first, it was obviously the rise of mobile and the app stores, and then we started to see the walls get broken down between messaging channels within businesses. And we started to land a lot more of those cross-channel deals and expanding into places like e-mail and web and in product messaging. More recently, we've seen the rise of the data scientists and the data engineer, who is really coming to the picture and you've seen the Braze product surface area expand in order to accommodate those new members of customer engagement teams.

當我審視 Braze 多年來肯定從中受益的許多長期趨勢時，首先，顯然是移動和應用程序商店的興起，然後我們開始看到內部消息渠道之間的壁壘被打破企業。我們開始進行更多的跨渠道交易，並擴展到電子郵件、網絡和產品消息傳遞等領域。最近，我們看到了數據科學家和數據工程師的崛起，他們真正出現了，你已經看到 Braze 產品表面積擴大，以適應客戶參與團隊的這些新成員。

But I think that the super cycle under all this is really that move toward brands being able to take action directly on their customer relationships, being able to inform that action with the first-party data assets that they are building up and then being able to take action on it through software and strategies and team structures like customer engage -- the entire customer engagement category delivers to them.

但我認為，所有這一切下的超級循環實際上是朝著品牌能夠直接對其客戶關係採取行動，能夠利用他們正在建立的第一方數據資產告知該行動然後能夠通過軟件、戰略和團隊結構（如客戶參與）對其採取行動——整個客戶參與類別都提供給他們。

And our next question comes from Brian Peterson with Raymond James.

我們的下一個問題來自 Brian Peterson 和 Raymond James。

Just one for me. So I wanted to hit on the North Star acquisition. Any help on what drove the timing of that, the strategic rationale? And anything you can share in terms of the financial contributions that's in the fiscal year '24 guide?

只給我一個。所以我想收購 North Star。對是什麼推動了這一時機的戰略依據有什麼幫助嗎？關於 24 財年指南中的財務貢獻，您可以分享什麼？

Yes. So I'll let Isabelle speak to the financial side. But from a timing perspective, I think that we've been working with North Star in the market for years. It's unique in our global footprint in the sense that it is a bidirectionally exclusive relationship, which means that they are the only people selling Braze in Australia and New Zealand. And they are also the only reseller that we work with in the region. We've been close to them for a long time, and we felt like that there was a lot of efficiency to be gained by bringing our teams together.

是的。所以我會讓伊莎貝爾談談財務方面的問題。但從時間的角度來看，我認為我們多年來一直在市場上與 North Star 合作。它在我們的全球足跡中是獨一無二的，因為它是一種雙向排他關係，這意味著他們是唯一在澳大利亞和新西蘭銷售 Braze 的人。他們也是我們在該地區唯一合作的經銷商。我們與他們的關係已經很長時間了，我們覺得將我們的團隊聚集在一起可以提高效率。

I was out there actually in November, met with all the different teams, and it was clear that them just having an abstraction layer between being real Braze employees was getting in the way of a lot of their efficiency from a day-to-day basis. And we wanted to take up who has been a really long time, great partner and bring them into the fold of Braze and really help accelerate our progress in the region.

我實際上是在 11 月在那裡，會見了所有不同的團隊，很明顯，他們只是在真正的 Braze 員工之間有一個抽象層，這阻礙了他們日常工作的效率.我們想聘請長期以來一直是優秀合作夥伴的人，將他們納入 Braze 的行列，真正幫助加速我們在該地區的進步。

Speak to the guidance. There's nothing in the guidance currently that accounts for North Star. This is a tuck-in, a small tuck-in acquisition. The overall impact to FY '24 revenue is going to be fairly small. We won't even close until Q2, so we won't get a full year's worth of revenue impact. So you're talking about less than 2% of revenue impact in this year. So it's not included. We'll update you guys on that progress as we get through to closing the deal.

跟指導說。目前指南中沒有任何內容說明 North Star。這是一個折入，一個小的折入收購。對 24 財年收入的總體影響將相當小。我們甚至要到第二季度才會關閉，所以我們不會對全年的收入產生影響。所以你說的是今年收入影響不到 2%。所以它不包括在內。當我們完成交易時，我們會向你們通報最新進展。

And our next question comes from Taylor McGinnis with UBS.

我們的下一個問題來自瑞銀集團的 Taylor McGinnis。

So the outlook for negative 7% operating income margin by 4Q or better is really solid. It seems that in order to get there based on some of the math that we played with, it might imply mid-single digits or so OpEx growth versus the 36% growth you did last quarter. So can you maybe just talk about or even quantify the drivers of that, so how much might be related to the pauses in hiring versus fixes in some of the sales efficiencies that you flagged in past quarters? And if we really use that negative 7% as a starting point for next year, how to think about the drivers beyond.

因此，到第 4 季度或更好的情況下，7% 的負營業利潤率前景非常穩固。似乎為了根據我們玩過的一些數學來實現目標，這可能意味著 OpEx 增長與上個季度的 36% 相比是中個位數左右。那麼你能不能談談甚至量化這方面的驅動因素，那麼與你在過去幾個季度標記的一些銷售效率的修復相比，招聘暫停與修復有多大關係？如果我們真的使用負 7% 作為明年的起點，那麼如何考慮以後的驅動因素。

Yes, thanks for the question. So yes, I think that one of the keys here, and I touched on this when I answered a previous question, is really related to our commitment to pausing headcount for the time being. And so what that really has required our leaders to do is actually look at their existing resources. So it's not about less investment. It's actually about reprioritization of investment dollars. Now yes, sequentially, the cost structure did go up from Q3 to Q4, but I think we talked about this in Q4 as we implemented the headcount pause.

是的，謝謝你的提問。所以，是的，我認為這裡的關鍵之一，我在回答上一個問題時提到了這一點，確實與我們暫時暫停員工人數的承諾有關。因此，真正需要我們的領導者做的是審視他們現有的資源。所以這與減少投資無關。這實際上是關於投資資金的重新優先排序。現在是的，按順序，成本結構確實從第三季度上升到第四季度，但我認為我們在第四季度實施人員暫停時談到了這一點。

There were still a few strategic heads that were being onboarded, and we had sort of the remaining number of heads of offers that had been made that needed to come and join the company. 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.

仍有一些戰略負責人正在入職，我們還有一些已經提出要約的剩餘負責人需要加入公司。你將開始看到未來幾個季度的穩定，這就是為什麼沒有任何明顯的 - 例如，在我們的指導中，第四季度和第一季度之間的經營槓桿率有明顯改善。

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.

因此，在接下來的幾個季度中，您將開始看到這一點——收入增長將繼續發展並繼續發揮作用，並且由於員工人數暫停，費用結構的整體增長將放緩。

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.

知道了。然後作為快速跟進。因此，當我們考慮到 2025 年的積極季度評論時，我想，你們在那個時間框架內考慮的收入增長是否有任何水平，甚至是方向性的？然後還有嵌入在更遠前景中的招聘方面的任何事情。

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 are not dependent on sustaining this headcount pause through to next year.

因此，我將對此發表 2 條非常高級別的評論。一個是為了實現這一點，為了在 25 財年實現正的季度營業收入和自由現金流，我們預計 24 財年和 25 財年之間的收入增長不會出現任何加速。而且我們確實有能力聘請一些級別的人。我們將在下一年的預測中增加一些員工人數。因此，我們不依賴於將這種員工人數暫停維持到明年。

And our next question comes from Derrick Wood with Cowen.

我們的下一個問題來自 Derrick Wood 和 Cowen。

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?

比爾，我想開始詢問定價和包裝。我認為你去年所做的其中一項改變是從平台銷售轉向多元化，在模塊化的基礎上銷售更多，並且只是從銷售的角度來看，或者更準確地說是用例。在您銷售各種產品的方式方面是否有任何實質性變化？

And what are the net effects 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?

在考慮對銷售週期、交易規模和交易量的影響以及展望新的一年時，需要考慮哪些淨效應？

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.

是的。我會以幾種方式對此進行分解。一是我們一直在為此準備產品。而且我認為，這對於您剛才提到的所有事情在短期內和長期內都非常重要，因為作為我們的 Start Anywhere, Go Everywhere 框架的一部分，我們希望讓客戶擁有越來越多的地方他們可以開始了。

And that in the future could include channel and platform or channel and kind of customer touch point pairings 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.

未來可能包括渠道和平台或渠道以及我們目前甚至不銷售的客戶接觸點配對。因此，我們很高興看到這種情況繼續下去——我們基本上為我們能夠在未來做到這一點奠定了基礎。我不——你不應該期望看到那麼多，稱之為 ASP 的變化。實際上，我們在進入第四季度時平均售價有所增加。顯然，你可以從我們已經分享的內容中推動這些數字。

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.

我們確實有這樣的例子，客戶肯定會購買一組範圍較窄的權利，但我們也有正在發生的供應商整合趨勢，這顯然正在朝著另一個方向發展。因此，當您將這些事情排除在外時，我不希望看到您在這些動議中看到的平均交易規模發生重大變化，但它對我們所做的是擴大我們的潛在市場，而且它將能夠更輕鬆地做到這一點。

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 have seen pressure because of headcount growth.

是的，這是有道理的。一，伊莎貝爾，對於你的淨收入保留率和對方向趨勢的思考，聽起來你可能會在你的指導方式方面期待更多的壓力。但是只有你們這些人在外面有點獨特。你有一個相當多樣化的定價模式，其他公司——有些公司的基於席位的許可模式由於員工人數的增長而面臨壓力。

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?

還有其他擁有消費模型的公司，由於優化而面臨壓力。同樣，你們更加多樣化。你認為這有助於提高耐用性和淨膨脹率嗎？我想如果不是這樣，鑑於宏觀趨勢，模型的哪些部分可能會承受更大的壓力？

So thanks for the question. So I think -- and I'll point to kind of the greater than $500,000 spenders, which typically are sort of some of these larger multifaceted enterprises. And a good bit of the upsell motion that happens with those organizations is actually a go-to-market motion that looks a lot like net new business. So it is our salespeople trying to access new logos within existing parent organizations. That is new stakeholders, new budgets. It's an entirely new sales cycle that behaves a lot like trying to acquire a net new organization.

所以謝謝你的問題。所以我認為 - 我會指出超過 500,000 美元的消費者，他們通常是這些較大的多方面企業中的一些。這些組織發生的大部分追加銷售活動實際上是一種進入市場的活動，看起來很像淨新業務。因此，是我們的銷售人員試圖在現有母公司內訪問新徽標。那是新的利益相關者，新的預算。這是一個全新的銷售週期，其行為很像試圖收購一個全新的組織。

And I think that's where you're going to see continued pressure where that behaves just like net new business and we're -- that is going to continue to be under pressure and work against us in terms of the evolution of the dollar-based net retention, particularly for those large vendors.

而且我認為這就是你會看到持續壓力的地方，它的行為就像淨新業務一樣，我們 - 這將繼續承受壓力，並且在基於美元的演變方面對我們不利淨保留，特別是對於那些大型供應商。

In fact, you're starting to see kind of the total company and the large guys kind of start to compress in terms of the distance. I will say that in the context of the guide, we are certainly embedding in the guide an assumption that there is more air to come out of the balloon. And so I think you're correct there in that, that is absolutely assumed in the context of the guide from a conservatism active.

事實上，你開始看到整個公司和大公司開始在距離方面進行壓縮。我要說的是，在指南的上下文中，我們肯定會在指南中嵌入一個假設，即有更多的空氣從氣球中出來。所以我認為你是正確的，這是在保守主義活躍分子的指南背景下絕對假設的。

And our next question comes from Scott Berg with Needham.

我們的下一個問題來自 Scott Berg 和 Needham。

Isabelle, I wanted to see if you can comment maybe on the linearity of sales in the quarter. Your Q1 guide kind of suggests the minimal sequential increase from Q4, which suggests maybe a more front-end weighted quarter than back-end. But I just wanted to see if you had any commentary around that.

伊莎貝爾，我想看看你是否可以對本季度的線性銷售發表評論。您的 Q1 指南有點暗示從 Q4 開始的最小連續增長，這表明前端加權季度可能多於後端。但我只是想看看你是否對此有任何評論。

Yes. So we have been evolving into kind of continually more actually back-end loaded. Q4 was fairly back-end loaded. In fact, we're actually pretty proud of even our last day of the quarter had operationally a lot of great success in pushing through quite a bit of business on the last day of the quarter. So that was a great success sort of internally from an operational perspective. But we are continuing to see back-end loaded quarter. So under normal circumstances, it would be about 50% of the net bookings get done in the third month, and we're seeing that trend upward.

是的。因此，我們一直在演變為一種持續更實際的後端加載。第 4 季度相當後端加載。事實上，我們甚至為本季度的最後一天在本季度的最後一天推動相當多的業務在運營上取得了很大的成功而感到非常自豪。因此，從運營的角度來看，這在內部是一種巨大的成功。但我們繼續看到後端加載季度。所以在正常情況下，大約 50% 的淨預訂是在第三個月完成的，而且我們看到這一趨勢正在上升。

Got it. Helpful. And then from a follow-up perspective, just wanted to see if you all can comment maybe on the expansion activity in the quarter. Did the type of expansion activity change at all, maybe from, I don't know, new channels, new different types of usage? Or was it really more just expansion on, I don't know, existing implementations customers were adding?

知道了。有幫助。然後從後續的角度來看，只是想看看你們是否可以對本季度的擴張活動發表評論。擴展活動的類型是否發生了變化，也許是來自新渠道、新的不同類型的使用？或者它真的只是擴展，我不知道，客戶正在添加的現有實現？

Yes. No, it's -- there's been no sort of dramatic change in any of that. SMS continues to be sort of -- it's on a smaller base. So we're seeing continued strong growth there. But otherwise, across our various channels and platform items, the growth has been relatively distributed in similar fashions to prior quarters.

是的。不，它是 - 在任何方面都沒有發生任何戲劇性的變化。 SMS 仍然是——它的基礎較小。所以我們看到那裡持續強勁增長。但除此之外，在我們的各種渠道和平台項目中，增長的分佈與前幾個季度類似。

And our next question comes from Pat Walravens with JMP Securities.

我們的下一個問題來自 JMP Securities 的 Pat Walravens。

Bill, we're going to go a little afield here. This future of life pause letter, did you sign it? Would you sign it? What are your thoughts?

比爾，我們要去遠一點的地方。這份未來生活暫停信，你簽了嗎？你會簽嗎？你怎麼看？

I was preparing for earnings, and so I didn't dig into that yesterday. But I definitely think that we -- with all technology that could go either way in terms of being helpful or becoming dangerous that we should be responsible around the development of it. I think that Braze is a place that's always been really measured about what AI is capable of and where we should trust it. I talked about that earlier in the sense that when you're interacting with first-party data and first-party relationships, the bar is just a lot higher for when we should go and trust the AI.

我正在為收益做準備，所以我昨天沒有深入研究。但我絕對認為我們 - 擁有所有可能在有用或變得危險方面的技術，我們應該對它的開發負責。我認為 Braze 是一個始終真正衡量 AI 能力以及我們應該信任它的地方。我之前談到過這一點，當你與第一方數據和第一方關係進行交互時，我們應該去信任 AI 的門檻要高得多。

And you've seen that Braze has never been one to promise a magic black box to solve all your problems. But it's definitely an exciting time for AI development. I think we need to continue to be mature and responsible about how we do it. I think that there should be more openness in terms of how these large models are being trained, what kinds of rule sets are being applied to them, what kinds of data sets are going into them.

而且您已經看到，Braze 從來都不是承諾一個神奇的黑匣子來解決您所有問題的人。但這絕對是人工智能發展的激動人心的時刻。我認為我們需要繼續保持成熟並對我們的工作方式負責。我認為在這些大型模型的訓練方式、對它們應用什麼樣的規則集、將什麼樣的數據集放入其中方面應該更加開放。

And I think that without additional transparency, it's going to be hard to trust the continued development of it. And so I definitely support continuing to put pressure on this ecosystem. It's not something that we should allow to just like run unchecked.

而且我認為，如果沒有額外的透明度，就很難相信它的持續發展。因此，我絕對支持繼續對這個生態系統施加壓力。我們不應該允許它不受限制地運行。

And our next question comes from Pinjalim Bora with JPMorgan.

我們的下一個問題來自摩根大通的 Pinjalim Bora。

One -- just one question for me. Isabelle, you were assuming it seems like a degrading -- degradation in the macro environment in the guidance. I want to ask you if you saw the macro headwinds intensify through the quarter or towards the end of the quarter or through Q1 so far.

一個 - 對我來說只有一個問題。伊莎貝爾，你假設這似乎是指南中宏觀環境的退化。我想問你，你是否看到宏觀逆風在本季度或本季度末或到目前為止的第一季度加劇。

So we haven't necessarily seen things getting worse in Q1 other than some of the disruption that we're seeing or that one could expect as a result of the most recent sort of banking uncertainty that obviously will have impacts on potential buyer behavior. But we're not necessarily seeing anything more negative in Q1 specifically.

因此，我們不一定會看到第一季度的情況變得更糟，除了我們正在看到的一些中斷，或者由於最近的銀行業不確定性顯然會影響潛在買家行為而導致的中斷。但我們不一定會在第一季度看到更多負面消息。

And our next question comes from Hannah Rudoff with Piper Sandler.

我們的下一個問題來自 Hannah Rudoff 和 Piper Sandler。

First one for you, Bill. You touched on this earlier, but can you just talk about what you're seeing in terms of adoption from outside of marketing, such as data engineers and product teams and what you're doing to kind of encourage adoption from those other users?

第一個給你，比爾。您之前提到過這個問題，但您能否談談您在市場營銷以外的採用方面看到的情況，例如數據工程師和產品團隊，以及您正在做什麼來鼓勵其他用戶採用？

Yes, absolutely. We've been really encouraged to see just how the interdisciplinary nature of the teams that use Braze has been -- year-over-year has continued to increase. We've been excited to see more users coming to the Braze dashboard, accomplishing more use cases. You heard us announce feature flags as well back at Forge. And so that's been bringing more product engineering teams into the fold.

是的，一點沒錯。我們真的很高興看到使用 Braze 的團隊的跨學科性質是如何逐年增加的。我們很高興看到更多用戶使用 Braze 儀表板，完成更多用例。你聽說我們在 Forge 上也宣布了功能標誌。因此，這讓更多的產品工程團隊參與其中。

And so when we look at things like cloud data ingestion, a lot of the work that's being done around data transformation, bringing currents into the fold, the expansions to the product catalog capabilities as well as I referenced earlier that there are subsets of the artificial intelligence feature set that we're building, that do require being -- some sophistication in terms of how you train it, how it learns, and how you nurture it over time, which does end up bringing more data scientists into the fold.

因此，當我們研究諸如雲數據攝取之類的事情時，很多工作都是圍繞數據轉換完成的，將電流納入其中，擴展產品目錄功能以及我之前提到的人工子集我們正在構建的智能功能集，確實需要——在你如何訓練它、它如何學習以及你如何隨著時間的推移培養牠方面有一些複雜性，這最終會讓更多的數據科學家加入其中。

And so we're definitely -- we're understanding of our position right now, and we're not like rushing to go and try to sell directly to those personas. But we think there's a tremendous amount of value to be had around bringing those personas into the Braze fold, having them collaborating with the marketer and the marketing budget that we are selling into today. That increases our awareness and our reputation in those groups, and we think it creates a lot of great optionality for us in the future.

所以我們肯定 - 我們現在了解我們的位置，我們不會急於去嘗試直接向這些角色銷售。但我們認為，將這些人物角色帶入 Braze 團隊，讓他們與營銷人員合作以及我們今天銷售的營銷預算具有巨大的價值。這提高了我們在這些群體中的知名度和聲譽，我們認為這會在未來為我們創造很多選擇。

Super helpful. And then can you just talk about the feedback and adoption for your cloud data ingestion product and how that's trended, and remind us when that goes GA?

超級有幫助。然後你能談談你的雲數據攝取產品的反饋和採用情況以及它的趨勢如何，並提醒我們什麼時候開始 GA 嗎？

Yes, absolutely. So actually, to answer your last question first, we actually had Snowflake go into GA on February 7. And excitingly, Redshift went into early access on the same day. And so actually, the product momentum there has been quite rapid. We also are off to a strong start in terms of customer adoption. We've got an early wave of customers actively sync-ing data from their warehouse to Braze.

是的，一點沒錯。所以實際上，首先回答你的最後一個問題，我們實際上讓 Snowflake 在 2 月 7 日進入 GA。令人興奮的是，Redshift 在同一天進入了搶先體驗。所以實際上，那裡的產品勢頭非常迅速。我們在客戶採用方面也有了一個良好的開端。我們有一批早期客戶主動將數據從他們的倉庫同步到 Braze。

We're already counting the number of data points with units of 1 billion, which is exciting to see, especially in the early days. We've also been really happy with how quickly people have been able to get those connectors up and running and integrated and configured. And you should also expect, much like with our launch of Currents, that we'll plan to roll out a few more connectors to cover the most popular data warehousing solutions in our customer base.

我們已經在統計以 10 億為單位的數據點數量，這令人興奮，尤其是在早期。我們也非常高興人們能夠如此快速地啟動、運行、集成和配置這些連接器。您還應該期待，就像我們推出 Currents 一樣，我們將計劃推出更多連接器，以涵蓋我們客戶群中最流行的數據倉庫解決方案。

We're not going to try to build 100 cloud data ingestion connectors or anything like that because we're tightly integrated also with Reverse ETL and CDP partners.

我們不會嘗試構建 100 個雲數據攝取連接器或類似的東西，因為我們還與反向 ETL 和 CDP 合作夥伴緊密集成。

And so once we have covered out bases with some of these more popular data warehousing solutions, we then will switch to refocusing on tightening the vertical integration into Braze with those partners as well as with our own cloud data ingestion products.

因此，一旦我們用這些更受歡迎的數據倉庫解決方案中的一些解決方案覆蓋了基礎，我們就會轉向重新關注與這些合作夥伴以及我們自己的雲數據攝取產品加強垂直集成到 Braze 中。

And our next question comes from Yun Kim with Loop Capital.

我們的下一個問題來自 Loop Capital 的 Yun Kim。

With the new year, anything you were changing in your go-to-market motion to better -- to show better execution or adjust your execution in the current environment? Any changes that you're making? And then also any particular focus this year in your SKL?

在新的一年裡，您在進入市場的行動中有什麼改變是為了更好地展示更好的執行力或在當前環境中調整您的執行力？你正在做任何改變嗎？那麼今年您的 SKL 中還有什麼特別的重點嗎？

Yes, we've been really happy with the investments we've been making across go-to-market strategy operations as well as across all the field teams. There's been a lot of moving parts from the summer through November, and we spoke about those in the last couple of earnings calls. And so not a lot of big changes being made as we enter the new year because we were really preparing for this year already in advance. I'll say that the programs have been running really well.

是的，我們對我們在進入市場戰略運營以及所有現場團隊中所做的投資感到非常滿意。從夏天到 11 月，有很多變動的部分，我們在最近幾次財報電話會議上談到了這些。因此，在我們進入新的一年時並沒有做太多大的改變，因為我們真的已經提前為今年做準備了。我會說這些程序運行得非常好。

Our annual kickoff in early February, we executed on that right away as we started our new fiscal year, and it was super productive, great feedback across the board. And also, one of the benefits of the net new hiring slowdown is that it's taken a little bit of pressure off the system, and we've been able to focus on enabling a group with increasing average tenure. And so that's been giving us a lot of -- just a lot of optionality to focus in on more advanced topics and we've been happy with how those investments have been going.

我們在 2 月初啟動了年度計劃，我們在開始新的財政年度時立即執行了該計劃，而且它非常富有成效，得到了全面的反饋。而且，淨新招聘放緩的好處之一是它減輕了系統的一些壓力，我們已經能夠專注於使一個群體的平均任期增加。因此，這給了我們很多 - 只是很多選擇，可以專注於更高級的主題，我們對這些投資的進展情況感到滿意。

Okay. Great. And then if you can give us an update on the traction with the partners how is that progressing, especially in the current environment. How's the recent -- like partnership and what that integration -- have those been a key driver driving incremental traction with GSI, for instance?

好的。偉大的。然後，如果您可以向我們介紹與合作夥伴的牽引力的最新進展，尤其是在當前環境下。例如，最近的合作夥伴關係以及這種整合是如何成為推動 GSI 增量牽引力的關鍵驅動因素的？

Yes. So I mean, I'll obviously point to the announcement that we made about the partnership with WPP yesterday. We're really excited about that and think it has a lot of potential in the future, both from consolidated product development standpoint as well as coordinated go-to-market activity. We're also continuing to make great progress with the global systems integrators like Accenture and Deloitte.

是的。所以我的意思是，我顯然會指出我們昨天宣布的與 WPP 的合作夥伴關係。我們對此感到非常興奮，並認為它在未來具有很大的潛力，無論是從綜合產品開發的角度還是協調的上市活動。我們還繼續與埃森哲和德勤等全球系統集成商取得重大進展。

And then you referenced a few technology partners that have been really important as we've been doing co-development, like with cloud data ingestion with Snowflake and obviously the launch of WhatsApp with Meta. And so these are all places where we're leveraging and taking advantage of partnerships. And I would just connect all of that back to the commentary that I made early on in the call where qualitatively, I'm really excited about all of these things that are happening, they're enhancing our position.

然後你提到了一些非常重要的技術合作夥伴，因為我們一直在進行共同開發，比如使用 Snowflake 進行雲數據攝取，顯然還推出了帶有 Meta 的 WhatsApp。因此，這些都是我們利用合作夥伴關係的地方。我只想將所有這些與我在電話會議早期所做的評論聯繫起來，從質量上講，我對正在發生的所有這些事情感到非常興奮，它們正在增強我們的地位。

We're taking advantage of this opportunity to really go and cement really strong partnerships around our ecosystem. We're backing it up with investment that we're making both from a product perspective as well on the go-to-market side. Quantitatively, obviously, the macro is impacting everyone. And so we don't think that those partnerships are operating at their full potential right now from an overall dollars perspective. But what we're doing is building out the qualitative aspects of them that are going to provide the right foundation such that when the macro improves later on that we're going to be ready to really accelerate in partnership with all of them.

我們正在利用這個機會真正去鞏固圍繞我們生態系統的真正強大的合作夥伴關係。我們正在通過從產品角度和上市方面進行的投資來支持它。顯然，從數量上講，宏觀正在影響每個人。因此，從整體美元的角度來看，我們認為這些合作夥伴關係目前並未發揮其全部潛力。但我們正在做的是構建它們的定性方面，這些方面將提供正確的基礎，以便當宏觀經濟稍後改善時，我們將準備好與所有這些夥伴合作真正加速。

And our next question comes from Matt VanVliet with BTIG.

我們的下一個問題來自 BTIG 的 Matt VanVliet。

I guess Isabelle, you mentioned in the guide you're essentially assuming no major improvements to sales productivity. Although with the pause and hiring and what Bill was talking about with the extended tenure of the sales team, I think that was sort of the assumption for most of us, at least, that sales productivity will continue to improve throughout the year. So maybe just help us think about what's giving you the pause or at least the level of conservatism on that front. And anything that you can share kind of influencing that, that we might watch to see if you're outperforming.

我想 Isabelle，你在指南中提到你基本上假設銷售效率沒有重大改進。儘管暫停和招聘以及比爾所說的延長銷售團隊的任期，但我認為這對我們大多數人來說都是一種假設，至少，銷售效率將在全年繼續提高。因此，也許只是幫助我們思考是什麼讓你停頓下來，或者至少是在這方面的保守主義水平。任何你可以分享的影響，我們可能會觀察你是否表現出色。

Yes. So thanks for that. So I think it's really just a way to kind of moderate our view of what the right level of current investment is in the business. And we want to wait to see more signs of kind of acceleration in the net new business environment, our ability to kind of continue to sort of strongly upsell among these enterprise customers and access these sort of net new logos within the existing organizations. And we're waiting to see sort of a little bit more kind of acceleration there. And so I -- before I am willing to sort of incorporate that into the guide, we'd like to get a little bit more time within this year to see how the macro is going to play out.

是的。所以謝謝你。所以我認為這實際上只是一種緩和我們對當前業務投資的正確水平的看法的一種方式。我們希望看到更多的淨新業務環境加速跡象，我們有能力繼續在這些企業客戶中進行強勁的追加銷售，並在現有組織中訪問這些淨新標識。我們正在等待那裡看到更多的加速。所以我 - 在我願意將其納入指南之前，我們希望在今年內有更多時間來了解宏觀將如何發揮作用。

There's still a lot of uncertainty, and we just think it's prudent. We've always approached the guide very prudently. And so we just believe it's prudent, in the context of the guide, to make that assumption that the sales productivity will have limited improvement and then we hope to surprise to the upside.

還有很多不確定性，我們只是認為這是謹慎的。我們一直非常謹慎地接近指南。因此，我們只是認為，在指南的背景下，假設銷售生產力的改善有限，然後我們希望能出人意料。

Okay, very helpful. And then when you look at the potential rationale for easing the hiring pause, you mentioned high level 25 is not yet assuming that pause continues. Are you looking at it more on a time-based element? Are you going to wait for the macro to improve? Are there certain internal KPIs that would give you confidence that maybe it's time to start hiring a little bit more aggressively and sort of additive to go-to-market in particular?

好的，很有幫助。然後，當您查看放寬招聘暫停的潛在理由時，您提到高級別 25 尚未假設暫停繼續。您是否更多地關注基於時間的元素？是不是要等宏觀改善？是否有某些內部 KPI 可以讓您相信也許是時候開始更積極地招聘一點，特別是對進入市場進行某種補充？

So most of our headcount infrastructure is fairly model-driven. And so what we do, and we are consistently evaluating this, is evaluating the algorithms for the models, the inputs and then what that would say in terms of head count requirements to support the needs of the business around the organization. So we do that consistently. We do it very regularly 4 to 5 times a year in a very structured fashion. And so we will continue to evaluate the inputs of the overall business growth, business size and make those decisions around increasing the overall size of the headcount as a result of how those algorithms play out.

所以我們的大部分員工基礎設施都是模型驅動的。因此，我們所做的，並且我們一直在評估這一點，是評估模型的算法、輸入，然後是在人數要求方面會說些什麼，以支持組織周圍業務的需求。所以我們始終如一地這樣做。我們每年以非常有條理的方式定期進行 4 到 5 次。因此，我們將繼續評估整體業務增長、業務規模的輸入，並根據這些算法如何發揮作用，圍繞增加員工總數做出這些決定。

There are no more questions in the queue, so I will now pass the call back to Bill for closing remarks.

隊列中沒有其他問題，所以我現在將電話轉回 Bill 以進行結束髮言。

All right. We are right at time. So thank you to everyone for joining us today. We remain committed to delivering industry-leading customer engagement solutions for our customers and high growth at scale for our shareholders and are looking forward to updating you on that progress in the coming quarters.

好的。我們來得正是時候。感謝大家今天加入我們。我們仍然致力於為我們的客戶提供行業領先的客戶參與解決方案，並為我們的股東提供大規模的高增長，並期待在未來幾個季度向您通報最新進展。