Why does Twilio need investor money to grow and Microsoft did not? Microsoft also grew rapidly, but didn't take a lot of outside funding. Why? Because they charged adequate price for their products. In the documents, Twilio stated they have a hard time determining pricing (something I've seen with other SaaS companies as well). Since they are not profitable with the current pricing, they should increase it and cut certain costs.
That's because Twilio doesn't exist in a bubble. They're in a highly competitive sector. Their pricing has to reflect that.
They may lose money in the short-term but it allows them to become the de facto standard for telephony APIs and then they can increase their pricing or they can leverage their size to open new revenue streams.
