Braintrust Blog | The Future of Work.

Braintrust Network Update: February 2023

Written by Adam Jackson | Feb 24, 2023 8:10:43 PM

We’ve been busy closing the books on fiscal year ‘22 (January 31, 2023) and developing our budgets and plans for fiscal year ‘23. We closed the year with $85M GSV (gross service value), which represents a 252% YoY (year-over-year) growth, but short of our target of $100M due to the economic headwinds.  

Despite that, we continue to add new talent, clients, and expand existing clients at a rapid pace. We have a lot to be proud of: 

  • 400+ active clients.
  • 1,500+ active jobs.
  • Successful launch of a new category, Direct Hire, which contributed $5M in revenue and is something we expect to dramatically increase in the year ahead.

 

We’ve also done a detailed analysis of our customer base, what’s working and what’s not, which uncovered some really interesting insights: 

  1. We are continuing to see returning clients grow significantly YoY – First year clients spent on average $125K GSV in 2022; those returning for their second year spent an average of $279K (220% increase YoY) and those in their third year spent $453K (163% increase YoY). 

  2. For enterprise-level clients, we had an 84% annual retention rate (by client count) with the average enterprise client spending $470K GSV with Braintrust in 2022. Enterprises made up 27% of our total clients by count, but 64% of GSV. While Enterprise clients take longer to onboard and land, we are continuing to double down on our enterprise sales approach given their high retention rates and GSV growth rates.  

  3. For small and mid-size businesses (SMBs), we are seeing similar GSV growth rates for returning clients on average growing from $71K in their first year to $149K in year two (211% YoY), but our retention rates are much lower (~55% by count) in large part due to the economic environment this last year (less hiring for SMBs). In 2023, we are continuing to focus on SMBs, but will be increasing our ability to drive self-service via the product in this segment vs a sales-led approach.

  4. Lastly, we made a big upgrade to our token-based connector program in Q4 (5x’d output quarter-over-quarter) and are now averaging ~10 new (primarily enterprise) client intros per week from warm introductions. This will be a big client growth lever for us as we continue to ramp the volume and output this next quarter. 

These are end-of-year insights that we plan on building into the Network Dashboard.

Additionally, I recently did an interview on the Startups for Good podcast where I got to have a really honest and frank discussion about what we're doing and why I'm so passionate about it. It's a fairly comprehensive (yet succinct) explanation of the vision for the network, why Gabe and I are so passionate about it, the incredible traction we've gotten so far, and MOST importantly, the opportunity that lies ahead.

How can you help? If you haven’t already, please make sure you join our Connector Program to refer clients and earn BTRST!

Thank you, as always, for your support. I would welcome your feedback directly. And I am of course always here to answer any other questions about Braintrust.

All the best,

Adam
@adamjacksonsf