Clouded Judgement

JUNE 30, 2023

Subscribe now Data + Compute = AI Two of the largest data companies in the world, Snowflake and Databricks, held their annual conferences this week. To truly take advantage of AI, enterprises need organized data in the cloud. The challenge is probabilistic answers don’t work for true enterprise specific AI.

AI Search 130

AI Search AI Cloud Data 130

Clouded Judgement

JUNE 7, 2024

Are AI native software companies starting to eat everyone’s lunch? Every company from the smallest startup to largest enterprise is looking to transform their business with AI. Giving budget to build out AI capabilities has to come from somewhere. The challenge with AI today is the innovation cycles are so rapid.

Cloud 183

Cloud AI Enterprise Revenue 183

SaaStr

DECEMBER 29, 2023

In part one of this week’s Ask-Me-Anything (AMA) with SaaStr founder and CEO Jason Lemkin, he answered the community’s questions about whether all anyone cares about is AI anymore, investor appetites going into 2024, vertical SaaS, and thriving as a solo founder. Now, everyone wants AI to do it. Fire anyone that isn’t metrics-oriented.

Scale 222

Scale Sales Hiring Customer Success AI 222

Andreessen Horowitz

MARCH 21, 2024

Generative AI took the consumer landscape by storm in 2023, reaching over a billion dollars of consumer spend 1 in record time. Over the past couple months, we’ve spoken with dozens of Fortune 500 and top enterprise leaders , 2 and surveyed 70 more, to understand how they’re using, buying, and budgeting for generative AI.

Generative AI 145

Generative AI AI Enterprise Artificial Intelligence 145

Andreessen Horowitz

OCTOBER 12, 2023

What do enterprise buyers in healthcare care about most when evaluating AI products? We’ve designed this to mirror the thought process of an entrepreneur building an AI product with an enterprise use case. In other words, buyers aren’t seeking AI for AI’s sake.

Healthcare 110

Healthcare AI Payments Enterprise 110

Stax

JANUARY 24, 2024

The phrase “dynamic pricing” often sparks heated debates in eCommerce and retail, and it’s not hard to see why. If you’ve ever booked a hotel, ordered an Uber, or shopped on Amazon, you’ve experienced the effects of dynamic pricing in real-time. Prices may shift down or up at a moment’s notice.

Payment Methods 88

Payment Methods Pricing Airlines Payment Solutions 88

SaaStr

DECEMBER 17, 2021

Pricing is one of the most challenging elements to get right for SaaS companies. How much should you charge, and what pricing model works best? In an era of empowered buyers, vendors should take care to remove obstacles from the pricing process or risk losing the customer to a competitor.

Pricing 200

Pricing Scale Retention AI 200

Clouded Judgement

MAY 31, 2024

.” As growth starts to slow, it gets harder and harder to justify using revenue multiples as a primary valuation metric. And when this happens, growth companies transition to more of a value based valuation metric (FCF or PE). In theory, companies in ex-growth mode are starting to hit the outer bounds of their maturity curve.

Cloud 177

Cloud Software GCP(Google Cloud Platform) AI 177

Clouded Judgement

MARCH 1, 2024

Anything AI related has always been “hot,” but it has really hit a fever pitch in the last few months. What’s most interesting about this, is a lot of the darling AI companies from last year have really slowed down, but everyone seems to have forgotten this and is ready to “find the next big thing.”

Cloud 311

Cloud AI Investment Metrics 311

Clouded Judgement

APRIL 26, 2024

What was arguably more impressive (and a better indicator of what’s to come for the rest of infrastructure software than overall Azure growth) was the Azure growth excluding AI Services (since Azure uniquely benefits from this). If I take my best guess at pulling out AI Services from overall Azure, I get to the data in the below graph.

Azure 177

Azure Cloud Software AI 177

Andreessen Horowitz

MARCH 7, 2024

Though many customers value paying only for what they consume in usage-based pricing, that flexibility also makes it very difficult to predict how much of your product they’ll use. Pricing Use an easy-to-understand, easy-to-measure pricing metric. Most effective segments: all. No one wants to sign blank checks.

Scale 88

Scale Pricing SMB Forecasting 88

Clouded Judgement

DECEMBER 1, 2023

Couple takeaways for me: 2024 is shaping up to be the “prototype to production” year for AI. A strong data foundation is critical for an effective AI strategy! This was repeated quite a few times AI tends to be additive budget for large enterprises. This year, there was tons of experimentation.

AWS 293

AWS Cloud AI Search Cost optimization & reporting 293

Andreessen Horowitz

MARCH 5, 2024

In this presentation from the American Dynamism Summit , a16z General Partner Martin Casado lays out the case for AI as a driving force behind incredible advancements in technology, creativity, and the human experience — not to mention efficiency improvements on par with, if not greater than, those delivered by the internet and the microchip.

AI Search 74

AI Search AI Artificial Intelligence Technology 74

FastSpring

AUGUST 2, 2023

To take advantage of our Contextual platform, its subscription and pricing capabilities, B2B offerings, and advanced reporting tools, just open a ticket with our support team here: [link]. FastSpring’s dedication to continually improving and upgrading its products proved to TestDome that we’re a long-term partner to their business.

Payment Solutions 147

Payment Solutions Payment Methods Merchant Services AI Search 147

Clouded Judgement

JANUARY 26, 2024

Net new ARR is something I track very closely for all of the private companies I work with, and it’s also an important metric to look at in public companies. And here is a passage from their earnings transcript talking about AI: Let's spend some time framing the dimensions of this new AI world. trillion by 2027.

Cloud 161

Cloud Marketplace as a Service AI Subscription 161

Unbounce

JULY 5, 2023

The answer: AI, baby. Specifically, AI analytics. And that’s the point: AI’s ability to process so much data at incredible speeds makes a lot of today’s digital experiences possible. The more AI observes, the more it learns and improves. We’re gonna explain the who, what, when, where, and why of AI analytics in marketing.

Artificial Intelligence 98

Artificial Intelligence AI Search AI Machine Learning 98

Clouded Judgement

NOVEMBER 10, 2023

When I think about the monetization of AI (and which “layers” monetize first) I’ve always thought it would follow the below order, with each layer lagging the one that comes before it. Model providers (OpenAI, Anthropic, etc as companies start building out AI). 2024 will be the year of AI applications!

Cloud 183

Cloud Artificial Intelligence AI GCP(Google Cloud Platform) 183

User Pilot

MAY 22, 2024

Next, you have to create two versions of the onboarding flow and define the metrics you want to track. Goal tracking : The A/B testing tool you select should allow you to track specific goals or metrics. These come in handy for visualizing and monitoring key metrics. Pricing for the Enterprise plan is available on request.

Software 86

Software Scale AI Mobile 86

SaaStr

DECEMBER 23, 2023

Aggressive price increases across the board consumed much CS energy as well. #3. The bottom line is almost everyone saw NRR fall in 2023 — the traditional metric of success for CS. Strip our price increases, it looks even worse. So be it, but that left even fewer resources and attention on just plain … customer success.

Customer Success 239

Customer Success AI Pricing Enterprise 239

Clouded Judgement

FEBRUARY 2, 2024

So what you're seeing is much more of that continuous cycles by customers, both when it comes to AI or whether it comes to the traditional workloads.” Sometimes new workloads are AI related. They also are seeing AI revenue (largely compute) show up sooner than anyone else. ” What’s the TLDR?

Cost optimization & reporting 161

Cost optimization & reporting Cloud Azure AWS 161

SaaStr

OCTOBER 31, 2023

With nine figures in revenue, Ariel and SaaStr founder and CEO Jason Lemkin talk about all things Navan, rebranding when you have brand equity, building B2B software for people, pricing and business models, and much more. But shoppers are more savvy these days and can just Google hotel prices to see if it’s fair.

Payment Solutions 210

Payment Solutions Payments Travel Scale 210

Clouded Judgement

MAY 10, 2024

So far - you’re either tied to AI tailwinds, or it’s rough out there. And in the public universe, it’s really only been the hyperscalers who’ve benefited from AI. Given most software companies are not profitable, or not generating meaningful FCF, it’s the only metric to compare the entire industry against.

Cloud 161

Cloud Software GCP(Google Cloud Platform) Azure 161

Blulogix

DECEMBER 12, 2023

Why Usage-Based Pricing (UBP)? The Compelling Case for Change By BluLogix Team The B2B subscription landscape whispers of a transformative force – usage-based pricing (UBP). Gone are the days of one-size-fits-all plans and opaque pricing structures. Customers yearn for flexibility, transparency, and a pay-as-you-go ethos.

Pricing 59

Pricing AI Search Subscription Payment Features 59

SaaStr

MAY 27, 2024

Jason Lemkin discusses why pricing is worse than ever for startups. Manipulated metrics and fraudulent practices can cause long-term problems for companies and investors. The current funding environment is challenging, with pricing becoming more difficult, but there’s still potential for good deals if market conditions improve.

CTO Hire 183

CTO Hire Development Team Review Software Review Technical Review 183

Clouded Judgement

APRIL 11, 2024

Through these interactions, I’ve built up mental benchmarks for metrics on which I place extra emphasis. My hope is that this analysis can provide startup entrepreneurs with a framework for how to manage their businesses around SaaS metrics (e.g., Who are the real AI winners. net retention and CAC payback).

Cloud 177

Cloud Software Azure AWS 177

Clouded Judgement

MARCH 31, 2023

How Will AI Effect Software Business Models? Like many, I’ve been thinking about how AI and foundation models will effect the world of software. In particular - how AI will effect software business models. The challenge with AI is that it introduces another (potentially large) component to COGS. Double the price!

Cloud 130

Cloud Sales Hiring AI Headcount 130

SaaStr

JANUARY 12, 2024

Second, the top public SaaS companies had a great year in their stock prices, even in growth slowed. The average public SaaS company saw it’s stock price up 40%. Third, AI exploded. That means tech customers shrunk their spend. Shopify was up 128%! HubSpot was up 104%! More on that here. OpenAI apparently got to $1.4

Sales Hiring 249

Sales Hiring Cloud AI Startup 249

Blulogix

DECEMBER 7, 2023

B2B Subscriptions in 2024: Embracing a Paradigm Shift with Usage-Based Pricing By BluLogix Team As the clock ticks towards 2024, a seismic shift is brewing in the B2B subscription landscape: the rise of usage-based pricing (UBP). No longer will rigid, one-size-fits-all plans and shadowy pricing structures hold sway.

B2B 52

B2B Subscription Payment Features Pricing 52

SaaStr

FEBRUARY 7, 2023

Take a look at just some of the topics and mentors hosting Braindates: Core metrics to track for SAAS with Tarush Aggarwal, Founder & Ceo at 5X Pricing as a growth lever – How, what, why? The goal is to help each other learn something new, find mentorships, create partnerships, and exchange strategies.

VP of Engineering 231

VP of Engineering Technical Cofounder Outsourcing Services CTO Coach 231

Kellblog

JANUARY 2, 2024

Customer retention came into sharp focus in 2023 and with it a new, balanced view relying on both NRR and GRR as key retention metrics. The bloom comes off the consumption pricing rose. I’ve always felt the famous Warren Buffet quote applies to consumption-based pricing: “when the tide goes out you can see who’s swimming naked.”

AI Search 108

AI Search Technical Review Technical Advisors ChatGPT 108

Blulogix

DECEMBER 18, 2023

Usage Pricing: Turning Consumption into Revenue – A Practical Guide to Transitioning to Consumption Subscription Billing By BluLogix Team In the realm of consumption-based billing, navigating the intricate network of data staging and mediation stands as a pivotal factor in driving efficient billing processes.

Payment Features 52

Payment Features Subscription Pricing Revenue 52

SaaStr

JULY 27, 2023

Investors currently struggle with price finding for these rounds. There’s no new normal or price set yet, and that uncertainty creates a little bit of fear among investors to overpay. “Am And finding that right clearing price is still a work in progress. Now, efficiency matters, and your burn multiple is an important metric.

AI 181

AI Trends Banking Pricing 181

User Pilot

JANUARY 20, 2024

We’ll explore its features, pricing, and offer a comprehensive review to aid in your decision-making process. Walkthroughs have a measurable impact on just about every SaaS metric, including activation, retention, engagement, adoption, and Time to Value. Let’s get started! What are the pros and cons of Userlane?

Software Review 52

Software Review Technical Review Pricing Underperforming Technical Team 52

SaaStr

SEPTEMBER 20, 2023

Discover Bessemer Venture Partners’s annual State of the Cloud report, going through trends, benchmarks, and metrics that underpin the Cloud economy. SVB collapsed, market multiples are down, yet the IPO window is re-opening, and we have a platform shift to AI that’s exciting everybody. What does this mean for Cloud companies?

Cloud 236

Cloud Payments Software Review Payment Solutions 236

Clouded Judgement

OCTOBER 27, 2023

Further they said: “For H2 [H2 for their fiscal year is the quarters ending March ‘24 and June ‘24], assuming the optimization and new workload trends continue and with the growing contribution from AI, we expect Azure revenue growth in constant currency to remain roughly stable compared to Q2.”

Cost optimization & reporting 152

Cost optimization & reporting Cloud Azure AWS 152

SaaStr

DECEMBER 20, 2023

The Takeaway — While 2024 should be a bit more predictable, the most important metrics ZoomInfo is focusing on now are utilization and engagement. How is ZoomInfo Integrating More Advanced AI? At ZoomInfo, they’re integrating more AI for personalization and prioritization. Who’s on the buying committee?

New CTO 241

New CTO Scale Sales Hiring AWS 241

User Pilot

JANUARY 20, 2024

We’ll explore its features, pricing, and offer a comprehensive review to aid in your decision-making process. Walkthroughs have a measurable impact on just about every SaaS metric, including activation, retention, engagement, adoption, and Time to Value. Let’s get started!

Software Review 52

Software Review Technical Review Pricing Systems Review 52