Clouded Judgement

APRIL 28, 2023

AWS (Amazon), Azure (Microsoft), and Google Cloud (Google) all reported this week. Azure reported on Tuesday and gave us that glimmer of hope. Then AWS appeared to add fuel to that hope before giving us a huge rug pull. Azure came in at 31% (constant currency). They then guided to 26-27% Azure growth in Q2.

Cloud 130

Cloud Azure AWS AI Search 130

Clouded Judgement

MARCH 22, 2024

Subscribe now ARR (Annual Recurring Revenue) vs ERR (Experimental Runrate Revenue) ARR (Annual Recurring Revenue) is one of the most popular SaaS (Non-GAAP) metrics. Many investors laugh (and some rightly so) at the fact that software companies’ valuations are often described as a multiple of revenue.

AI 183

AI Revenue Cloud Technical Advisors 183

Tom Tunguz

OCTOBER 27, 2022

I’m watching public company earnings to identify early weaknesses in the software market. Microsoft Azure. Infrastructure revenue growth averaged 33% this quarter, which is astounding considering we’re talking about businesses that sum to more than $50b of revenue per quarter. Google Cloud Platform.

Cloud 228

Cloud GCP(Google Cloud Platform) Azure AWS 228

Tom Tunguz

JULY 26, 2022

I’m watching public company earnings to identify early weaknesses in the software market. Microsoft Azure. Microsoft Azure grew 40% y/y, tying the fastest quarterly growth rate in the past 5 quarters. That suggests the cloud market is quite strong. Google Cloud Platform. Amazon Web Services.

GCP(Google Cloud Platform) 190

GCP(Google Cloud Platform) Cloud Azure AWS 190

Clouded Judgement

JANUARY 6, 2023

Cloud Downgrades This week UBS came out with a couple research reports citing concerns in AWS / Azure growth. This brings me back to AWS / Azure downgrades. Revenue multiples are a shorthand valuation framework. Every week I’ll provide updates on the latest trends in cloud software companies.

Cloud 130

Cloud Azure AWS Underperforming Technical Team 130

Clouded Judgement

AUGUST 4, 2023

” These are two quotes about AWS on the Amazon earnings call. AWS grew 16% in Q1, but called out growth in April (first month of Q2) was 11%. You can see more detail about their net new ARR added each quarter below Azure Growth came in at 27%, and guided to 25-26% growth for Q3. Overall Stats: Overall Median: 6.4x

Cloud 130

Cloud Azure Cost optimization & reporting AWS 130

Clouded Judgement

MAY 10, 2024

And no one raised full year guide >2% The median “beat” (Q1 revenue over Q1 consensus estimates) was 1.5%, which is the lowest it’s been in the last 4 years Overall, it’s been a TOUGH quarter for software companies. Revenue multiples are a shorthand valuation framework. Overall Stats: Overall Median: 5.7x

Cloud 161

Cloud Software GCP(Google Cloud Platform) Azure 161

SaaStr

MARCH 9, 2022

Focusing on smaller developers, in some ways it’s been a bit overshadowed by AWS, Azure, and Google Cloud. But it’s a great case study on how nailing a niche, and staying focused on a core ICP in a huge market, can pay off. They are only 15% of the customers, but 83% of the revenue. That’s impressive.

Azure 224

Azure AWS SMB Cloud 224

Clouded Judgement

OCTOBER 28, 2022

Hyperscalers Report Quarterly Earnings This week we saw AWS (Amazon), GCP (Google) and Azure (Microsoft) report earnings. Overall, it wasn’t pretty… AWS grew 28% when expectations were 30-31%. At the same time, Azure came in below expectations. Follow along to stay up to date! Top 5 Median: 15.8x

Cloud 130

Cloud Azure AWS Cost optimization & reporting 130

SaaStr

FEBRUARY 20, 2021

But are AWS, Azure and Google Cloud just too big for us to learn from? Google Cloud sees Cloud revenues tripling in the next 5 years. The Cloud Market as Google Cloud defines it has grown at a jaw-dropping rate, from $85B in ’15 to $290B in ’20. So I think there are some good learnings! million customers.

Cloud 221

Cloud Azure AWS Scale 221

Tom Tunguz

NOVEMBER 28, 2023

“Q3 product revenue grew 34% year-over-year to reach $698 million. " As with many other companies reporting strength in the market, AI & unstructured data workloads are fueling growth. “Yes, we actually saw quite a bit of energy coming from the Azure platform this quarter.

GCP(Google Cloud Platform) 142

GCP(Google Cloud Platform) Azure Data Startup 142

Clouded Judgement

OCTOBER 20, 2023

Hyperscaler Preview Next week Amazon, Microsoft and Google report earnings and we’ll see Q3 data for AWS, Azure and Google Cloud. Office 365 Copilot, for example, doesn’t go live until November and we most likely won’t see meaningful revenue from it until next year. Overall Stats: Overall Median: 5.7x

Cloud 161

Cloud Azure AWS Software Review 161

Clouded Judgement

JULY 28, 2023

AI = Data + Compute I’ll continue beating this drum, but we got two great quotes from Azure and AWS this week. ” Then at AWS Summit they called out “Your data is your differentiator when it comes to Generative AI.” Meaning labor markets continue to be strong! AWS reports next week.

Cloud 130

Cloud Azure AWS GCP(Google Cloud Platform) 130

Clouded Judgement

APRIL 21, 2023

Next week we get all 3 hyperscalers reporting (AWS from Amazon, Azure from Microsoft, and GCP from Google). Let’s double click on Azure. On AWS, in their Q4 earnings call they said AWS was growing “mid teens” in January (down from 20% in Q4). Revenue multiples are a shorthand valuation framework.

Cloud 130

Cloud Azure AWS GCP(Google Cloud Platform) 130

Clouded Judgement

JUNE 9, 2023

Expansion revenue is still declining (we see this in falling net retention rates), but gross retention remains strong. Usage on Snowflake is driven by queries run on Snowflake Azure: Neutral Tone With Strength in AI Overall I’d characterize Azure’s quarter as a net positive. Overall Stats: Overall Median: 5.7x

Trends 130

Trends Cloud Azure AWS 130

SaaStr

MAY 6, 2022

So the public markets are in tumult. This is just starting to roll through the private markets and is going to make a bumpy rest of the year. Ultimately — revenue multiples. Revenue multiples are how much VCs, investors, and ultimately, an IPO and public markets will value each dollar of revenue.

SaaS 340

SaaS Azure Cloud AWS 340

SaaStr

MARCH 31, 2022

And it’s one of the three large cloud vendors that we all know: Microsoft, AWS, and Google. Azure’s marketplace has over 4 million monthly visitors. AWS’s marketplace has seen 1.5 Rico Mallozzi: So marketplaces are fundamentally changing, go to market motions for a lot of enterprise technology companies.

Scale 209

Scale Marketplace as a Service Cloud SaaS Payments 209

Clouded Judgement

AUGUST 11, 2023

” It’s really important that new business is still healthy, and a sign of overall market health. While the overall median revenue multiple of the software universe is ~6x (which is ~25% below the long term average of ~8x), high growth software is currently trading at a premium to it’s long term average (9.4x

Cloud 130

Cloud Trends Azure GCP(Google Cloud Platform) 130

SaaStr

APRIL 27, 2021

After polling CIOs, Gartner found that total SaaS spend will grow from $100B in 2020 to $140B in 2022: A few interesting implications and learnings: The growth in SaaS buying should give you a +20% a year boost on top of your other sales and marketing efforts. That’s a huge tailwind. This is your time, folks. Go make it happen.

GCP(Google Cloud Platform) 167

GCP(Google Cloud Platform) Azure AWS SaaS 167

Clouded Judgement

FEBRUARY 3, 2023

I’ll be right sometimes, I’ll be wrong sometimes, but it’s fun to try and make sense of what’s going on in the markets together. Then we had the Fed meeting this week creating a huge move in the software market. Clearly the market tone is getting more dovish. The market was offsides.

Cloud 130

Cloud Azure AWS Generative AI 130

SaaStr

NOVEMBER 14, 2023

What Is A “Consumption” Business In the old days of software, you had a company like Oracle that popularized the perpetual license where customers own the software and vendors own the market. What’s evolved over the years and is driven by hyper-scalers like Google Azure, AWS, Twilio, and Stripe is the consumption-based model.

Compensation 169

Compensation Sales Azure AWS 169

Clouded Judgement

NOVEMBER 10, 2023

Hyperscalers (AWS, Azure, GCP as companies look for cloud GPUs who aren’t building out their own data centers) Infra (Data layer, orchestration, monitoring, ops, etc) Durable Applications We’ve clearly well underway of the first 3 layers monetizing. Revenue multiples are a shorthand valuation framework.

Cloud 183

Cloud Artificial Intelligence AI GCP(Google Cloud Platform) 183

SaaStr

AUGUST 27, 2019

Around 2013 or so, the Cloud started to grow far faster than any of us had thought it would: Amazon Web Services revenue 2018 | Statista. The markets took a while to catch up. That $200b+ of additional Cloud and SaaS spend fueled 50+ Cloud unicorns and massive growth in AWS, Azure, etc. It’s still accelerating.

Cloud 137

Cloud Azure AWS Enterprise 137

Stax

APRIL 18, 2024

Independent Software Vendors (ISVs) and Software-as-a-Service Providers (SaaS) operate within the same market, thus creating a push-and-pull revenue dynamic. How companies price and distribute their solutions affects everything from revenue streams and customer interaction to product development and delivery methods.

Outsourcing Services 88

Outsourcing Services SaaS Payments Payment Services Payment Methods 88

OpenView Labs

FEBRUARY 9, 2021

This is why we’re seeing more and more SaaS companies—Datadog, Twilio, AWS, Snowflake, and Stripe, to name a few—find success with product led growth paired with usage-based pricing. It requires shifts in go-to-market strategy, sales compensation, financial planning, billing, and much more. Then they tell their boss what to buy.

Scale 98

Scale Pricing Scaling AWS 98

Baremetrics

DECEMBER 7, 2023

Benefits of using Expense Categories in SaaS The main expense categories for any SaaS company are: Cost of Revenue Research & Development Sales & Marketing General & Admin These four categories are the standard for describing costs and expenses of any SaaS company from Salesforce to Zoom to your startup.

Merchant Services 90

Merchant Services Startup DevOps as a Service SaaS 90

OPEXEngine

OCTOBER 25, 2019

As the close of 2019 approaches, with extreme stock market volatility and mixed economic signals, SaaS Finance execs building plans for 2020 and 2-5 years beyond don’t have an easy time. What assumptions should you use among conflicting signals about economic and market growth over the next few years?

Trends 40

Trends Marketing SaaS Azure 40

Blulogix

OCTOBER 11, 2023

The ability to bill clients based on their actual consumption of services not only maximizes revenue but also simplifies operations. Cloud Service Providers: Integrate data from popular cloud providers like AWS , Azure, or Google Cloud to track resource consumption and costs.

Payment Features 52

Payment Features Management Azure AWS 52

Blulogix

NOVEMBER 8, 2023

This flexibility enables businesses to respond to market demands efficiently. Here are some notable examples: Cloud Computing Major cloud providers like AWS, Azure, and Google Cloud offer pay-as-you-go pricing, enabling businesses to access computing resources based on their actual usage.

Technology 52

Technology Pricing Payment Features Subscription 52

ProfitWell

MAY 12, 2020

SaaS ensures that consumers are always up to date with the latest version, while also ensuring that developers have a continuing source of revenue with which to maintain their product. Hubspot — Along with Salesforce, Hubspot is one of the leaders in inbound marketing. We are not considering those in our comparison of cloud services.

Cloud 59

Cloud Azure SaaS Underperforming Technical Team 59

ProfitWell

SEPTEMBER 10, 2020

The market is growing at 30% per year. SaaS revenue is expected to reach $143.7 Running your own server to handle your customer's valuable data requires a huge investment to match the same level of security and reliability that comes baked into services like Amazon AWS and Microsoft Azure cloud. billion by 2022.

SaaS Payments 66

SaaS Payments Trends Merchant Services Payments 66

OpenView Labs

FEBRUARY 11, 2021

Now, for each segment, isolate its revenue and COGS. If revenue hides all sins, gross margin reveals them via segmentation. “If revenue hides all sins, gross margin reveals them via segmentation. Margin compression also occurs when your variable costs increase disproportionately to your revenue.

Scale 52

Scale Payment Methods Payment Services Systems Review 52

SaaStr

JULY 19, 2022

Using the Drift Conversation Cloud, businesses can personalize experiences that lead to more quality pipeline, revenue and lifelong customers. More than 5,000 customers use Drift to deliver a more enjoyable and more human buying experience that builds trust and accelerates revenue. Usually, it takes a paradigm shift to grow.

GCP(Google Cloud Platform) 229

GCP(Google Cloud Platform) Artificial Intelligence Enterprise readiness Azure 229

SaaStr

OCTOBER 6, 2022

We help B2B SaaS marketers turn organic search into a source of repeatable revenue through software and coaching. The platform automates the provisioning of your application to the cloud (AWS, GCP, Azure), integrating cloud ops, DevOps, and security/compliance with 24×7 monitoring and support.

GCP(Google Cloud Platform) 207

GCP(Google Cloud Platform) Azure AWS compliance 207

Sales Hacker

MARCH 10, 2020

This week on the Sales Hacker podcast, we speak with Nicole Wojno Smith , the VP of Marketing at Tackle.io. Nicole is the VP of Marketing at Tackle.io, a company that helps ISVs sell their software through the cloud marketplaces. Prior to Tackle, Nicole was the CMO at UserIQ, where she built the marketing department from scratch.

Sales Hiring 73

Sales Hiring Scale Marketing AWS 73

SaaStr

MAY 15, 2020

Finally, before YesWare, she was VP of Sales @ Engine Yard, where she tripled monthly recurring revenue, over the course of her 3+ year tenure, in 3 key leadership roles. We’ve spent a lot of time in the world of marketing lately, and so I wanted to switch it up today, and move to the sales and customer success side.

Sales Hiring 202

Sales Hiring Scale Technical Review Outsourcing Services 202

SaaStr

AUGUST 26, 2022

As SaaStr Europa 2022 drew to a close, attendees took one more opportunity to ask Jason questions about topics like how to navigate the current market, the future of work, playing in a crowded space, and hiring your first VP of Sales. Look at Snowflake and GitLab and ZoomInfo, growing almost 60% at a billion in revenue. Transcript.

Sales Hiring 213

Sales Hiring Scale Sales Recruiting Scaling 213