Sep 27, 2017 · 34m · top-founders
795: SaaS: With $117m Raised, Google Tried to Kill Him But He's Winning App Deeplinking Wars
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gold bands on the timeline = statements, start to end. Hover to read, click to jump. CC turns on captions
Nathan Latka interviews Alex Austin, CEO of Branch.io, discussing how the company raised $117 million to build the search and deep linking infrastructure for the mobile app ecosystem while scaling enterprise revenue and outlasting competition from Google.
How this conversation actually went
Every chapter scored 0–10 on four independent dynamics. Hover any point for the reasoning behind the score. Nathan holds 31.9% of the talking time here. How this is scored →
Nathan as informed peer 4.7 Guest teaching 2.6 Guest disagreement 1.6 Nathan pushing back 2.6
speaking balance: gold is Nathan, purple is the guest (3 minute bins)
Sharpest disagreement ▶ 24:31 Alex rejects the premise that money drives his ambition
When Nathan bluntly calls his answer bullshit, Alex immediately counters that there are far easier ways to make money and asserts that his true drive is creating massive global impact.
Hardest push from Nathan ▶ 17:53 Nathan confronts Alex on revenue metrics vs fundingNathan refuses to accept that 45 enterprise accounts at $60k ACV justifies $117M in venture backing, explicitly asking where his math is wrong.
Biggest teaching moment ▶ 18:21 Alex reframes SaaS ARR vs app indexing visionAlex educates Nathan on why Branch raised massive capital on an infrastructure indexing play analogous to early web search rather than a standard cash-flow SaaS multiple.
Nathan holds their own ▶ 17:53 Nathan calculates ARR from customer counts and contract sizeNathan demonstrates strong financial acumen by multiplying 45 enterprise customers by $60K ACV on the spot to calculate Branch's approximate $2.7M ARR.
the scores for every segment, with the reasoning behind each
| Chapter | Topic | Nathan as informed peer | Guest teaching | Guest disagreement | Nathan pushing back | Why |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Alex Austin on Engineering at NASA and Transitioning to Software | 3 | 1 | 0 | 0 | Nathan introduces Alex's background at NASA and asks about his transition into software. Alex explains his shift from semiconductor physics research to building software products in a friendly, conversational manner. | |
| Solving Discovery for Kindred and Pivoting to Branch | 4 | 2 | 1 | 2 | Alex details how distribution challenges with his photobook app Kindred led to building Branch's deep linking architecture. Nathan presses for specific financial numbers on the sale of Kindred, and Alex deflects exact figures while explaining legal fees took half the price. | |
| The Mission to Build the Search Engine for Mobile Apps | 6 | 3 | 1 | 3 | Nathan drills down on Branch's business model, customer examples like Airbnb, contract values, and pricing structure. Alex clarifies that enterprise monetization started recently while the overarching goal remains indexing the mobile app ecosystem. | |
| Unorthodox Customer Acquisition Tactics and Developer Community Building | 4 | 1 | 1 | 1 | Nathan asks for unorthodox growth tactics, leading Alex to describe their Stack Overflow upvote strategy and building the global Mobile Growth meetup community. | |
| SDK Adoption, Enterprise Concentration, and Big-Vision Fundraising | 7 | 5 | 3 | 6 | Nathan runs financial calculations comparing the $117M raised against an estimated $2.7M ARR, challenging the valuation logic. Alex reframes the narrative, explaining investors backed the vision of building Google search for apps rather than a traditional SaaS multiple. | |
| Winning the Deep Linking War Against Competitors and Google | 6 | 4 | 4 | 5 | Nathan probes Alex's competitive mindset and challenges his claim of not caring about personal monetary gain. Alex pushes back vigorously, explaining his primary motivation is building an impactful legacy and defeating Google's direct knockoff product. | |
| Mid-Roll Sponsorship: The Top Inbox Acquisition | 3 | 2 | 1 | 1 | Nathan conducts a sponsor mid-roll about The Top Inbox and then leads Alex through the standard Famous Five rapid-fire questions, where Alex explains why he dislikes business books and respects Amazon's memo process. |
Statements from this episode (14)
Austin: Kindred sale legal fees consumed half the purchase price
“The legal fees ended up overall, I think taking up about half of the sales price.”
Austin: Kindred hit $500k ARR with 1% monthly growth before Branch pivot
“Basically, I think we got it to be around 500 K a year in revenue, but we were investing most of it back into the business but it wasn't growing. It was growing at like one percent a month or something terrible like that”
Austin: Branch powers 40% of the mobile app ecosystem
“Right now at this point we have about 40% of the app ecosystem using Branch today. So, most, probably, most people have around, like, 10, 20 apps on their phone. About 40% of them are actively using Branch.”
Austin: Branch aims for 98% app penetration to build mobile search index
“The goal though, is to get 98% of the app ecosystem using branch. Why is that a goal? Because when we have that, we basically indexed the app ecosystem. We built a directory of every page that's accessible inside apps and the analogous, you know, index in the …”
Austin: Branch Enterprise ACV Averages $55,000 to $60,000
“Our enterprise clients, we have, I'd say average deal size right now is about 55 to 60 K, 6000 dollars. Annually.”
Enterprise deals closed faster when Branch started charging for its product
“We found that we could actually charge, and when we charge people, it found that enterprise customers actually closed faster than we were giving away for free, and we were making money.”
Austin: Branch bootstrapped 'Mobile Growth' meetups across 40+ countries for marketing
“We basically started a meetup group. It's called Mobile Growth, and it's now in like over 40 different countries around the world. And we sort of like bootstrapped it just as a way to drive marketing to branch.”
Austin: Over 26,000 developers are using Branch's SDK
“So we are now at, I think in terms of folks using the SDK, we're about over 26,000.”
Austin: Branch has 40 to 50 enterprise customers
“So, yeah, so enterprise-wise, I think it's probably in the 40 to 50, and then there's, like, probably close to a couple thousand in terms of long tail, kind of, like, self-onboarded folks.”
Austin: Branch lured Pinterest, Airbnb, and Etsy from Yozio, forcing its shutdown
“There was a company in our space when we first started that actually had Pinterest, Airbnb, and Etsy using them. When we had just launched literally brand new, super buggy product within a year and a half, all those companies were using us and that company had…”
Google's Firebase copied Branch's SDK variables and marketing collateral
“They launched a product in last year at Google IO that was a direct replica of branch under the Firebase brand called dynamic links, literally copied all of our marketing collateral. I think the variables of their iOS SDK you reused variables from my header fi…”
Austin: Google put 300 sales reps on Firebase Dynamic Links before effort stalled
“Then they threw 300 sales and marketing people at this product with the sole objective of pushing Firebase, deep linking, and replacing branch. So every single one of our customers got an email from somebody at Google. All of our pipeline got it. Like they wen…”