Business Breakdowns

Today we will be diving into Twilio. Twilio was founded just over a decade ago by Jeff Lawson, with the vision of enabling developers to access the world's communication infrastructure through APIs. Twilio has over 200,000 customers and powered nearly 1 trillion interactions last year through SMS, voice, video, email, and more. In this business breakdown, we'll cover Twilio's unique approach to distribution, how lower gross margins versus peers can actually be a moat, and why Twilio's revenue

Today we will be diving into Cinnabon. Founded in Seattle in 1985, Cinnabon is the market leader among cinnamon roll bakeries and is owned by parent Company Focus Brands. Cinnabon currently operates in almost 50 countries with over 1,500 franchised locations, primarily in high-traffic venues such as shopping malls and airports. In this breakdown, we start with Cinnabon's scale and an overview of the franchise's fascinating history. We then dive into what really makes Cinnabon special - its

Today, we will be diving into Costco. Costco is a favorite business story and model for many operators and investors. It was founded in 1983 in Seattle, and it has grown into a juggernaut with over $169 billion in sales and almost 60 million members globally. To me, Costco is the best example of doing one thing for customers and getting better at it constantly for decades. To help me break down Costco, I talked to both Zack Fuss and Chris Bloomstran. Zack is an investor at Continental Grain, a

Today, we will be breaking down the world's largest e-commerce company, Alibaba. Alibaba was founded in 1997 by Jack Ma and almost 20 other co-founders as an online bulletin board that allowed small Chinese manufacturers to tell buyers around the world that they were open for business. Today, Alibaba operates a sprawling ecosystem of businesses that includes e-commerce marketplaces, cloud computing, food delivery, logistics, and financial services. In this breakdown, we discuss the staggering

Today we will be diving into Chipotle, the fast-casual food chain known for its burritos. It was started in 1993 by Steve Els, an entrepreneur who is actually a classically trained chef and dreamed of opening a fine dining restaurant. He started Chipotle to earn cash for that dream, but the well-known chain took off and made TexMex fast-casual food an American staple. Over the past two decades, Chipotle has expanded nationwide to over 2000 owned and operated stores. Its significant growth is tied

Today we will be diving into Shopify. Shopify was founded in 2004 by Tobi Lütke and Scott Lake around their original problem of why it's so hard to build an online business when they struggled to open an online snowboard equipment store. Today, Shopify's goal is to make commerce better for everyone and it's essentially an on-ramp for people looking to sell online. To help us break down Shopify, I'm joined by co-host Zack Fuss and our guest Alex Danco, who works on the Money team at Shopify. To

Welcome to Business Breakdowns, a new Colossus podcast featuring deep-dive conversations on individual businesses. In each episode, we will dissect a new company with investors and operators that know it best. We believe every business has secrets and lessons to learn from, and these conversations are designed to deliver that content in an entertaining and narrative format. The series launches on April 5th with Shopify. Make sure to subscribe for new episodes and leave us a 5-star rating on

Business Breakdowns is a series of conversations with investors and operators diving deep into a single business. For each business, we explore its history, its business model, its competitive advantages, and what makes it tick. Learn more and stay up to date at joincolossus.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices