Clouded Judgement

FEBRUARY 2, 2024

Amazon on AWS : “…customers are continuing to shift their focus towards driving innovation and bringing new workloads to the cloud. They also are seeing AI revenue (largely compute) show up sooner than anyone else. I’d say both of the “non AI” Azure / AWS figures weren’t actually that strong?

Cost optimization & reporting 161

Cost optimization & reporting Cloud Azure AWS 161

Clouded Judgement

APRIL 11, 2024

Q4 earnings season for cloud businesses is now behind us. My hope is that this analysis can provide startup entrepreneurs with a framework for how to manage their businesses around SaaS metrics (e.g., Q4 Revenue Relative to Consensus Estimates Now let’s dive in to the financial results of Q4 starting with revenue.

Cloud 177

Cloud Software Azure AWS 177

Clouded Judgement

OCTOBER 27, 2023

Subscribe now Cloud Giants Report Q3 ‘23 Not a great signal for software this week from the Cloud Giants (AWS, Azure and Google Cloud)…After Q2 (3 months ago), the tone from the Cloud Giants around optimizations was largely: optimizations have started to ease, and net new workloads have picked up. That is not new.”

Cost optimization & reporting 152

Cost optimization & reporting Cloud Azure AWS 152

Hitenism

NOVEMBER 7, 2016

In 2006, after Amazon Web Services (AWS) helped pioneer what we now call the cloud, product development changed forever. Today, one-third of daily internet users visit websites built on top of AWS. AWS is now an $11.5B run rate business and has made up for an incredible 67% of Amazon’s operating revenue last quarter.

AWS 189

AWS New CTO Scale CTO 189

Baremetrics

OCTOBER 31, 2021

But eventually you need to decide what stage your business is in. Do you think that there are 10x or 100x opportunities for your business ahead? If you want to scale, you need to make the investment of time and money and make sure your infrastructure suits your size of business. Plan for higher Cost of Revenue.

AWS 115

AWS DevOps as a Service Underperforming Technical Team Development Team Review 115

SaaStr

DECEMBER 14, 2023

At the time, they were less than a billion or two in revenue, and now, they just crossed over a $30B revenue run rate. Their focus on Marketing with Duet AI with Workspace has been a way to open up business in new accounts. What they’re seeing with GenAI and Google Cloud is an opportunity to grab share from AWS.

Cloud 236

Cloud Scale AWS AI 236

Clouded Judgement

APRIL 28, 2023

AWS (Amazon), Azure (Microsoft), and Google Cloud (Google) all reported this week. When the tailwinds of new business start to overcome the headwinds of optimization (or when headwind of optimization becomes a tailwind of net expansion). Then AWS appeared to add fuel to that hope before giving us a huge rug pull. They grew 16%!!

Cloud 130

Cloud Azure AWS AI Search 130

Clouded Judgement

AUGUST 4, 2023

And now we're seeing more progression into new workloads, new business. ” These are two quotes about AWS on the Amazon earnings call. .” ” 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%. Top 5 Median: 16.1x

Cloud 130

Cloud Azure Cost optimization & reporting AWS 130

SaaStr

MAY 16, 2022

So follow AWS, Azure and Google Cloud. Let’s look a whole level up to the real canaries-in-the-coalmine: AWS, Azure and Google Cloud. Microsoft’s Cloud business overall crossed a stunning $100B run-rate. And Gartner is still predicted SaaS purchase rates will accelerate in 2023 : AWS, Azure and Google Cloud say Yes.

Cloud 247

Cloud Azure AWS Engineering 247

Tom Tunguz

OCTOBER 27, 2022

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. At a 7x multiple of revenue, that is another $84b of market cap creation, in theory. A year ago, these business units grew at 44% annually.

Cloud 224

Cloud GCP(Google Cloud Platform) Azure AWS 224

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. This was the worst tone that we’ve heard in years from large AWS/Azure partners, a group that usually expresses different shades of optimism about AWS/Azure growth.”

Cloud 130

Cloud Azure AWS Underperforming Technical Team 130

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

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%. Multiples shown below are calculated by taking the Enterprise Value (market cap + debt - cash) / NTM revenue.

Cloud 130

Cloud Azure AWS Cost optimization & reporting 130

SaaStr

JUNE 28, 2023

53% of Revenue is Outside U.S. With 1,500 employees, SEMRush is at about $190,000 in revenue per employee (1,500 employees). Spending a Hefty 50% of Revenue on Sales and Marketing. They spend a pretty high 50% of all revenue on sales and marketing — and that’s up from last year. And a few other interesting learnings: #6.

Scale 194

Scale AWS Scaling Revenue 194

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

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 the promise of the software business model is as companies mature and go out of growth mode the profits will show up. Revenue multiples are a shorthand valuation framework.

Cloud 177

Cloud Software GCP(Google Cloud Platform) AI 177

Clouded Judgement

APRIL 21, 2023

Next week we get all 3 hyperscalers reporting (AWS from Amazon, Azure from Microsoft, and GCP from Google). 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. Follow along to stay up to date!

Cloud 130

Cloud Azure AWS GCP(Google Cloud Platform) 130

SaaStr

NOVEMBER 3, 2022

ChartMogul is an analytics platform to help you run your subscription business. Our mission is to build powerful and secure cloud software for subscription businesses of all sizes, with a strong emphasis on good design and ease of use. Which means better customer relationships, more data, and new sources of revenue.

Payments 222

Payments Payment Services GCP(Google Cloud Platform) Payment Solutions 222

Tom Tunguz

OCTOBER 22, 2022

They will manage their own servers to reduce the $3m annual AWS bill by 60%. Downtime implies a loss of revenue, which isn’t factored into the math above. But for slower growth businesses or those looking to optimize their efficiency, moving to self-hosted infrastructure may be worth considering.

Sales Hiring 235

Sales Hiring Cloud AWS Sales 235

Tom Tunguz

JULY 26, 2022

Today, Microsoft & Google revealed the health of their infrastructure business units. Google’s growth rate fell to 35%, a 29% decline from the trailing 4 quarter average of 49% annual revenue growth. Google’s annual ad business’ growth rate halved from 22% to 11%, lending credence to this idea.

GCP(Google Cloud Platform) 180

GCP(Google Cloud Platform) Cloud Azure AWS 180

Clouded Judgement

JULY 28, 2023

Subscribe now Busy week! 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.” AWS reports next week. Follow along to stay up to date!

Cloud 130

Cloud Azure AWS GCP(Google Cloud Platform) 130

Sales Hacker

MARCH 29, 2021

Building the right partner tech stack can dramatically increase the revenue flowing from your partners, even if your partnership team is small. The growing role of partnerships in driving revenue. Businesses are continuing to streamline their purchasing. Components of setting up your partner tech stack. Partner acquisition.

Payments 102

Payments SaaS Payments Payment Solutions Payment Services 102

SaaStr

OCTOBER 13, 2022

ChartMogul is an analytics platform to help you run your subscription business. Our mission is to build powerful and secure cloud software for subscription businesses of all sizes, with a strong emphasis on good design and ease of use. ChurnZero is the Customer Success platform and partner for growing SaaS and subscription businesses.

GCP(Google Cloud Platform) 190

GCP(Google Cloud Platform) Azure AWS Enterprise readiness 190

Clouded Judgement

SEPTEMBER 8, 2023

” We saw some green shoots in AWS and a few other consumption names, and overall sentiment seemed more positive. Q2 benefited from an “easy comp” (since Q1 was so light), so we’ll see how this trend continues (or doesn’t) in Q3 Moving on to Q2 YoY revenue growth. Overall Stats: Overall Median: 6.2x

Cloud 169

Cloud Software Review AWS Trends 169

Clouded Judgement

FEBRUARY 16, 2024

” From AWS (paraphrased): They said they expect the reaccleration they saw in Q4 to continue into 2024 2024 Estimate Updates One important metric I’m tracking this quarter is the change in 2024 estimates pre / post earnings. Revenue multiples are a shorthand valuation framework. Overall Stats: Overall Median: 6.4x

Cloud 161

Cloud AWS Metrics Subscription 161

Clouded Judgement

JUNE 9, 2023

Expansion revenue is still declining (we see this in falling net retention rates), but gross retention remains strong. Very healthy new business (new customer) acquisition. Revenue multiples are a shorthand valuation framework. New customer growth seems to be picking up. The Good Mongo: Very Positive - Is The Bottom Behind Them?

Trends 130

Trends Cloud Azure AWS 130

Tom Tunguz

NOVEMBER 28, 2017

In fact, this data bolsters the notion that management team’s top priority is recruiting, especially after the business has reached product market fit and capitalized itself well. I’ve normalized the years for when all the businesses were roughly at the same headcount - fewer than 50 people. A year later they are about 60.

Headcount 165

Headcount Scaling Software Business 165

SaaStr

AUGUST 15, 2020

Recently I was catching up with a good friend who used to be CEO of an enterprise-y SaaS social networking company — and the usage and engagement numbers of his business were just awful. Especially where business process change is involved. We also saw this at Adobe Sign / EchoSign, at least in small parts.

AWS 264

AWS Churn Enterprise Engagement 264

SaaStr

MAY 31, 2024

You’ve got a billion in revenue per year at Box, and yes, some of it goes to hosting and storage. There are founders in it for nothing else but to make money, but most folks who can get something off the ground to 7 figures in revenue are builders. #3: Businesses have to make money. At scale, this is a jigsaw puzzle,” he said.

Sales Hiring 225

Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting Marketing Scale 225

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. Most likely Datadog is seeing trends more unique to their own business.

Cloud 183

Cloud Artificial Intelligence AI GCP(Google Cloud Platform) 183

SaaStr

MARCH 31, 2022

And it’s one of the three large cloud vendors that we all know: Microsoft, AWS, and Google. AWS’s marketplace has seen 1.5 But also it’s allowed us to get much closer to our provider, I mean, we host and run 100% on AWS, but pull data from everywhere. It was pretty easy to drive that from our side.

Scale 198

Scale Marketplace as a Service Cloud SaaS Payments 198

Tom Tunguz

MARCH 8, 2020

Lisa built the channel at Optimizely, which accounted for a meaningful fraction of new business. Your customers may not know that it’s your product under the hood, so while you may gain a bunch of revenue, your brand equity won’t appreciate. Marketplaces: AWS marketplace, Heroku marketplace, Salesforce marketplace.

Scale 313

Scale AWS Consulting Sales Enablement 313

Sales Hacker

JANUARY 30, 2024

Amit Pande is CMO and EVP of Strategy at Aviso AI, a leading revenue intelligence platform. Previously, Amit led marketing efforts at startups like Tact AI (1st AI Assistant for Sales backed by AWS, Microsoft, and Salesforce), HP Inc (next-gen computing) and Spire AI (Human Capital SaaS).

AWS 81

AWS AI Advertising Finance 81

SaaStr

NOVEMBER 24, 2021

The SaaS sales model seems so well-established, as hundreds of founders build their businesses and raise funding. However, even the savviest entrepreneurs might be unaware of some of the blind spots that could be costing revenue. . Pothole #5 – Prioritizing Revenue Acquisition Ahead of Customer Value Creation.

Sales Hiring 188

Sales Hiring Scale Compensation Sales 188

Clouded Judgement

SEPTEMBER 15, 2023

AWS growth seems to be re-accelerating, and qualitative feedback from a number of companies in Q2 (especially those with July quarter ends) suggested new customer bookings conversations were picking up. Revenue multiples are a shorthand valuation framework. Overall Stats: Overall Median: 6.0x Top 5 Median: 14.7x Bucketed by Growth.

Software Review 130

Software Review Cloud Software AWS 130

Baremetrics

JANUARY 25, 2022

In recent years, a new discipline of financial management has emerged in response to cloud technologies and organizations growing reliance on cloud IT architectures and cloud-based business processes. For some businesses, however, this stage of FinOps can be more complex. One of the major advantages of the cloud is its scalability.

Payment Services 97

Payment Services SaaS Payments Payment Solutions Payments 97

The Angel VC

MAY 12, 2018

We generate over 90% of our revenue from self-serve channels — users who purchase a subscription through our app or website. But here you have it – it really is the King of Freemium , generating more than 90% of revenue from self-service channels. #3 Revenue for 2017 was $1.107B. 3 – It’s a Mouse Hunter! Mind blown. Wait, what?

AWS 187

AWS Scale Subscription Payment Features 187