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

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

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%. Revenue multiples are a shorthand valuation framework. Multiples shown below are calculated by taking the Enterprise Value (market cap + debt - cash) / NTM revenue.

Cloud 130

Cloud Azure Cost optimization & reporting AWS 130

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

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

Clouded Judgement

APRIL 28, 2023

AWS (Amazon), Azure (Microsoft), and Google Cloud (Google) all reported this week. Then AWS appeared to add fuel to that hope before giving us a huge rug pull. After all, they had a lot of AI tailwinds, and benefited tremendously from consolidation (without a headwind of a larger base of smaller startups, like AWS).

Cloud 130

Cloud Azure AWS AI Search 130

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

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

SaaStr

OCTOBER 13, 2022

You need an efficient way to keep your customers successful, reduce churn, drive adoption, and increase net revenue retention. Secureframe allows companies to get compliant within weeks, rather than months and monitors 100+ services, including AWS, GCP, and Azure.

GCP(Google Cloud Platform) 202

GCP(Google Cloud Platform) Azure AWS Enterprise readiness 202

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

Clouded Judgement

JUNE 9, 2023

Expansion revenue is still declining (we see this in falling net retention rates), but gross retention remains strong. Revenue multiples are a shorthand valuation framework. Multiples shown below are calculated by taking the Enterprise Value (market cap + debt - cash) / NTM revenue. Top 5 Median: 15.6x

Trends 130

Trends Cloud Azure AWS 130

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. Bucketed by Growth.

Cloud 183

Cloud Artificial Intelligence AI GCP(Google Cloud Platform) 183

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.” AWS reports next week. However, revenue growth didn’t bottom until Q3 ‘09.

Cloud 130

Cloud Azure AWS GCP(Google Cloud Platform) 130

SaaStr

NOVEMBER 14, 2023

What’s evolved over the years and is driven by hyper-scalers like Google Azure, AWS, Twilio, and Stripe is the consumption-based model. That way, they know what growth to expect and what incremental uplift they’re getting from having sales involved so they can continue to make better investments. This is MongoDB’s approach.

Compensation 161

Compensation Sales Azure AWS 161

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

Clouded Judgement

AUGUST 11, 2023

The good news is gross retention (ie churn) stayed constant. 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 Revenue multiples are a shorthand valuation framework.

Cloud 130

Cloud Trends Azure GCP(Google Cloud Platform) 130

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. Though it was pioneered in the infrastructure layer (think: AWS and Azure), it’s becoming increasingly popular for API-based products and application software.

Scale 98

Scale Pricing Scaling AWS 98

Clouded Judgement

MARCH 31, 2023

The majority of COGS (revenue less COGS = gross profit) fall in hosting costs (ie AWS), and some customer support. If they don’t want to pay double the price, then Notion has a decision to make - do they sell the Notion AI SKU at a price that dilutes gross margins if it ends up generating more revenue? Top 5 Median: 11.4x

Cloud 130

Cloud Sales Hiring AI Headcount 130

Clouded Judgement

FEBRUARY 3, 2023

In the short term, enjoy the ride as the chase continues 😊 Kind of related to all of this - we now have seen the Q4’s from AWS, Azure and Google Cloud. Revenue multiples are a shorthand valuation framework. Multiples shown below are calculated by taking the Enterprise Value (market cap + debt - cash) / NTM revenue.

Cloud 130

Cloud Azure AWS Generative AI 130

SaaStr

OCTOBER 31, 2019

It was around that time about 12 years ago that Jeff Bezos launched AWS, and some of you may remember that, when he did this, Wall Street analysts were looking at him and saying, “Why would you take what’s already a very unprofitable business and drive it further into the red by investing in this AWS initiative?”

Cloud 101

Cloud Scale AWS Machine Learning 101

SaaStr

SEPTEMBER 12, 2019

I’m talking about product-led growth as an investment strategy, but really my background is 10 years of operating experience in the product-led growth world. Now I’m investing in that. I say investment strategy, but really it’s like how do you build a company that’s focused on product-led growth?

Investment 101

Investment Underperforming Technical Team Sales Hiring Software Review 101

OpenView Labs

MARCH 4, 2021

The company struggled with poor churn and anemic expansion revenue. Net revenue retention was near 70%, a far cry from the 100%+ that most SaaS companies aim to achieve. By the time HubSpot went public in 2014, net revenue retention had jumped to nearly 100%—all without hurting the company’s ability to acquire new customers.

Pricing 55

Pricing Outsourced Development Marketplace as a Service AWS 55

OPEXEngine

JUNE 11, 2020

The product is hosted by the vendor or a 3 rd party (like AWS). SaaS affects the vendor’s financials primarily in that the vendor is carrying the cost of the hosting and updates of the product (COGs), and the vendor has to invest in customer success and other programs to ensure retention (can affect COGs, Sales, and Marketing.

SaaS Payments 52

SaaS Payments Payment Solutions Subscription Payment Features 52

ProfitWell

SEPTEMBER 10, 2020

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. Later, you'll be able to track annual recurring revenue as well.

SaaS Payments 66

SaaS Payments Trends Merchant Services Payments 66

Frontegg

MAY 27, 2021

Product-Led Growth (PLG) is a consumer-centric scaling, conversion, and retention philosophy that uses the product itself as the primary growth driver. Making the bottom-up shift: You are shifting from the top-down to a bottom-up mindset, which means more money and time to invest in R&D efforts. Best For: Revenue Acceleration.

Payment Solutions 98

Payment Solutions SaaS Payments Payments Scale 98

OpenView Labs

FEBRUARY 2, 2021

Here’s why: PLG is an end user-focused growth model that relies on the product itself as the primary driver of customer acquisition, retention, and expansion. In fact, seven of the nine recent software IPOs with the best net dollar retention have a usage-based pricing model. Is it right for your company? Growth in 2021 and beyond.

Product Marketing 58

Product Marketing Trends Scale Marketing 58

OpenView Labs

MARCH 16, 2021

And compared to their peers, companies with usage-based pricing trade at a 50% revenue multiple premium and see 10 percentage points better net dollar retention rates. It more closely aligns payment with a customer’s consumption, thereby impacting cash flow and revenue recognition. Forecasting consumption-based revenue.

Pricing 52

Pricing Payments SaaS Payments Payment Solutions 52

Frontegg

OCTOBER 14, 2020

Before AWS, engineering teams had to scale their own infrastructure. We were the first to recognize Frontegg and the fundamental gap in the SaaS market, the startup had identified, as well as the first to invest in the company” says Noga Kap , Managing Partner at i3 Equity Partners. “We

DevOps as a Service 52

DevOps as a Service K8S orchestration (Kubernetes) Innovation New CTO 52

Intercom, Inc.

DECEMBER 13, 2018

I saw we had the opportunity to do that in London and to do something that will be new for Facebook, in the same way that AWS was a new business model and product line for Amazon and a bet that paid off very well. We are going from having an enterprise business to having a mid-market business to investing in an SMB business.

Scale 151

Scale Marketplace as a Service Mobile Sales Hiring 151

SmartKarrot

JANUARY 11, 2023

The failure to achieve your Success Outcome will cost the hardware store future revenue- through no fault of its own. The pie tastes awful. The seller of the pie crust ingredients will lose future revenue, even though the pie crust was perfect. That puts your future revenue at risk. Similarly, let’s consider the pie.

Entertainment 19

Entertainment AWS B2B Customer Success 19

SmartKarrot

JULY 27, 2021

Role: Head of Customer Success Location: San Francisco, CA, US Organization: Turn/River Capital As a Head of Customer Success, you will work with the leadership teams at 2 to 3 of the Turn/River portfolio companies to develop and implement retention and growth strategies and build operational best practices. Apply here: [link].

Development Team Review 10

Development Team Review Technical Review Customer Success Systems Review 10

SaaStr

APRIL 30, 2022

Average Revenue per Customer. And basically SaaS revenue models is just magical for investors and for businesses. And you can basically predict revenue ahead of time and therefore raise money early on to grow even faster. First one and the most important one is obviously the MRR, monthly recurring revenue. MRR, obviously.

SaaS Payments 241

SaaS Payments Metrics Payment Methods Scale 241

SaaStr

MAY 14, 2019

Tables have turned because I first met Mikkel when just after I was working for previous fund index, he had just invested. And recently you released plans to reach a billion of revenue next year. We ended just shy of $600 million dollar in revenue for the year. Mikkel : Well again, the public cloud, AWS, was the dominant leader.

Cloud 190

Cloud Sales Recruiting Scale AWS 190

SaaStr

JUNE 1, 2021

This is the revenue growth for HubSpot leading up to the IPO. Double the revenue. I’m going to talk about retention. We’ll talk about retention. We all know retention is important. You guys are much more thoughtful around the metrics that you track and knowing that churn and retention is important.

Part-Time VPE 230

Part-Time VPE Technical Cofounder CTO Hire New CTO 230

OpenView Labs

FEBRUARY 3, 2022

To find out which of these features are most common, OpenView surveyed over 500 SaaS companies ranging from pre-revenue to $100 million in ARR. All too often, companies omit certain acquisition costs, over-inflate recurring revenue by failing to strip out one-time revenue, and/or leave out some of the ongoing costs of serving a customer.

Headcount 73

Headcount SaaS Compensation Acquisition 73

SaaStr

JULY 1, 2020

It has a portion of its revenue that’s very sensitive to the economy and a lot of startups in the customer base, good and bad, right? Because sales folks want to close the biggest deal and they may not like downgrades or logo retention, how are you thinking about this issue? We can save companies $100,000 on their AWS bill.

Merchant Services 181

Merchant Services Scale Sales Recruiting Sales 181

SaaStr

SEPTEMBER 13, 2020

If you look at the IAS vendors, they passed $130 billion revenue milestone this year. We’ve all seen AWS and what they’ve done with their platform. One of the early co-investments with my prior firm in Bessemer was in Shopify. It is staggering. Even at spectacular scale, they’re still growing at 30%.

Sales Hiring 161

Sales Hiring Scale Payments Cloud 161