IMHO all these companies are flooded with account managers, sales, customer success, BDR, when they could just let customers choose their own plans, upgrade freely, etc, instead of "schedule a call with our team"
Companies do that because it works. Early in Twilio’s life (pre-ipo) the company was very adamant that outreach and negotiation are not needed for SaaS. Jeff Lawson (the CEO) would regularly mock and lambast companies for having a pricing page that said any variation of “contact us for pricing”. There were some pretty dramatic reorgs and management departures because of that attitude. Lawson eventually relented and adopted a more hands-on growth model and growth went up.
Before the change, the company was really struggling to attract blockbuster customers. The growth strategy was (and still partly is) to have startups get hooked early by the quality and just never leave as they grow. For the longest time their biggest customer by faaaaar was Uber, and that happened because both companies were created and grew together. Once the hands-on outreach started, they started getting meaningful revenue from giant multinational banks and manufacturers that have a ton of money but, frankly, don’t empower their developers to choose the best tools for the job.
Before the change, the company was really struggling to attract blockbuster customers. The growth strategy was (and still partly is) to have startups get hooked early by the quality and just never leave as they grow. For the longest time their biggest customer by faaaaar was Uber, and that happened because both companies were created and grew together. Once the hands-on outreach started, they started getting meaningful revenue from giant multinational banks and manufacturers that have a ton of money but, frankly, don’t empower their developers to choose the best tools for the job.