Clouded Judgement

MAY 10, 2024

All 3 (AWS, Azure, GCP) saw positive reacceleration Quarterly Reports Summary Top 10 EV / NTM Revenue Multiples Top 10 Weekly Share Price Movement Update on Multiples SaaS businesses are generally valued on a multiple of their revenue - in most cases the projected revenue for the next 12 months.

Cloud 161

Cloud Software GCP(Google Cloud Platform) Azure 161

SaaStr

MARCH 1, 2024

In the application layer for startups, many face challenges that boil down to retention. If you’re a startup building in this space, retention is a challenge, and you’ll need to be more strategic. Notion launched the first of many upcoming AI features, and they’ve priced it so that it may be at $100M ARR in the near term.

Generative AI 241

Generative AI Outsourcing Services AI Software Review 241

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

ChurnZero

JUNE 24, 2022

In our webinar, 2022 SaaS retention benchmarks , SaaS Capital Manager Director Rob Belcher shares the results from their 11th annual B2B SaaS benchmarking survey. You can download the full report for net retention and gross retention benchmarks as well as retention metrics in relation to ACV, growth, size, and more.

Benchmarks 98

Benchmarks Retention Software Review Technical Review 98

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%. Given most software companies are not profitable, or not generating meaningful FCF, it’s the only metric to compare the entire industry against.

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. I’ve put together a number of charts below to show how metrics from this quarter compared to prior quarters. Partly due to larger layoffs, as well as stronger bookings And finally - net retention.

Cloud 169

Cloud Software Review AWS Trends 169

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. 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 Azure AWS Software Review 161

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. Usage-based pricing will be the key to successful monetization in the future.”. Usage-based pricing is in all layers of the tech stack.

Scale 98

Scale Pricing Scaling AWS 98

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 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%. Every week I’ll provide updates on the latest trends in cloud software companies. Follow along to stay up to date!

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

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. So the buyer really doesn’t even have any success metrics going into the first renewal. OK, just renew at last year’s price.

AWS 264

AWS Churn Enterprise Engagement 264

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. I created this subset to show companies where FCF is a relevant valuation metric.

Cloud 161

Cloud AWS Metrics Subscription 161

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). Every week I’ll provide updates on the latest trends in cloud software companies.

Cloud 130

Cloud Azure AWS GCP(Google Cloud Platform) 130

SaaStr

DECEMBER 20, 2023

For example, Google and AWS are already ZoomInfo customers, but only certain sub-segments within those businesses – not the entire org. So, in 2024, there should be a more normalized customer base from a retention perspective as you transition past Q1 and those customers are transitioning with you.

New CTO 251

New CTO Scale Sales Hiring AWS 251

Clouded Judgement

JUNE 9, 2023

Expansion revenue is still declining (we see this in falling net retention rates), but gross retention remains strong. Given most software companies are not profitable, or not generating meaningful FCF, it’s the only metric to compare the entire industry against. New customer growth seems to be picking up.

Trends 130

Trends Cloud Azure AWS 130

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. ” Data is more important than ever! So what did we learn?

Cloud 130

Cloud Azure AWS GCP(Google Cloud Platform) 130

ChurnZero

JUNE 24, 2022

In our webinar, 2022 SaaS retention benchmarks , SaaS Capital Manager Director Rob Belcher shares the results from their 11th annual B2B SaaS benchmarking survey. You can download the full report for net retention and gross retention benchmarks as well as retention metrics in relation to ACV, growth, size, and more.

Benchmarks 52

Benchmarks Retention Software Review Technical Review 52

SaaStr

NOVEMBER 14, 2023

Then, we moved to a more customer-friendly model with SaaS and subscription-based pricing. What’s evolved over the years and is driven by hyper-scalers like Google Azure, AWS, Twilio, and Stripe is the consumption-based model. Rather than compensating based on ARR, it’s based on a volume and quality-based metric.

Compensation 169

Compensation Sales Azure AWS 169

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. For the bottom 10 companies on the right hand side of the chart, the median change in stock price after earnings was (18%).

Software Review 130

Software Review Cloud Software AWS 130

OPEXEngine

DECEMBER 7, 2021

Dive Brief: Usage-based pricing has grown 32% this year and now 45% of software-as-a-service (SaaS) companies use it all or in part, up from 34%, an OpenView survey shows. Pricing model growth. Usage-based pricing has been growing since at least 2018, when about a quarter of companies were using it, according to OpenView’s data.

Subscription 52

Subscription Payment Features Pricing SaaS 52

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. I created this subset to show companies where FCF is a relevant valuation metric.

Cloud 183

Cloud Artificial Intelligence AI GCP(Google Cloud Platform) 183

Clouded Judgement

MARCH 31, 2023

The majority of COGS (revenue less COGS = gross profit) fall in hosting costs (ie AWS), and some customer support. The only way for software companies to avoid this gross margin compression when incorporating AI features is to raise prices. Double the price! Consumption Pricing.

Cloud 130

Cloud Sales Hiring AI Headcount 130

Clouded Judgement

FEBRUARY 3, 2023

There’s a real chance the fed funds rate isn’t going >5%, and a soft landing or delayed recession is certainly possible (maybe even being priced in). If the market thinks the setup for H2 is great, it won’t wait until H2 to “price it in.” But what’s happened since? Lots of deceleration in growth.

Cloud 130

Cloud Azure AWS Generative AI 130

Clouded Judgement

AUGUST 11, 2023

The good news is gross retention (ie churn) stayed constant. The hyperscalers (AWS, Azure, GCP) are seeing some uptick, but this is largely from selling compute (ie cloud GPUs). Given most software companies are not profitable, or not generating meaningful FCF, it’s the only metric to compare the entire industry against.

Cloud 130

Cloud Trends Azure GCP(Google Cloud Platform) 130

OpenView Labs

MARCH 16, 2021

The usage-based pricing model almost feels like a cheat code —it enables SaaS companies to more efficiently acquire new customers, grow with those customers as they’re successful, and keep those customers on the platform. But the shift from pure subscription to usage-based pricing is nearly as complex as going from on-premise to SaaS.

Pricing 52

Pricing Payments SaaS Payments Payment Solutions 52

OpenView Labs

FEBRUARY 3, 2022

This metric represents how long it takes, in months, to pay off the costs of acquiring a given customer on a gross margin basis. Usage-based pricing (UBP) , also known as consumption-based pricing, allows customers to pay for products according to how much they use. These metrics are an indicator of product-market fit.

Headcount 73

Headcount SaaS Compensation Acquisition 73

SaaStr

OCTOBER 31, 2019

What I’m going to do is talk a little bit about what we’ve seen over the course of the last year and then also talk about some metrics we track or we encourage our founders to track as they’re building their businesses, and then, lastly, try to go through a few predictions for the next couple of years.

Cloud 100

Cloud Scale AWS Machine Learning 100

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. This metric is a strong future revenue indicator. Founded : 2011 Known customers: Facebook, IBM, Microsoft, AWS, Unity, Udemy, Shopify Price starts at: $38/month per user. #2

Payment Solutions 98

Payment Solutions SaaS Payments Payments Scale 98

ProfitWell

SEPTEMBER 10, 2020

By almost all key metrics, now is a great time to get into the SaaS business model. 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. Pricing Changes. Offer tiers.

SaaS Payments 66

SaaS Payments Trends Merchant Services Payments 66

How To Buy Saas

OCTOBER 11, 2023

Amazon also offers you the option to access the API using the AWS Command Line Interface (AWS CLI) or the AWS Software Development Kit (SDK). Starting Price Starting Price For 1000 emails $0.10 Check Out Amazon SES Prices What are the Best Amazon SES Alternatives?

Technical Review 52

Technical Review Software Review Payment Methods Systems Review 52

OpenView Labs

SEPTEMBER 13, 2019

And allocating additional resources toward your customer’s long-term success pays huge dividends – improving retention by just 1% affects a company’s bottom line by around 7%. The prototypical company with a Customer Success team is a high-priced subscription business with 12–24 month contracts. Impact on Customer Success teams.

Customer Success 43

Customer Success Revenue AWS Retention 43

SaaStr

MARCH 31, 2024

They talk about the culture code that was created in HubSpot’s early days and how they have continued to have strong retention rates and overall happiness in their employees. Also, don’t miss out on discounted prices for SaaStr Annual 2024 tickets. ” “I hated Katie at that company meeting, it was awful.”

Part-Time CTO 260

Part-Time CTO CTO Hire CTO Coach CTO 260

SaaStr

JUNE 1, 2021

One of the challenges with that, one of the requisites, in order to start charging money, is you have to come up with a price. At the time we had to make the pricing decision, we didn’t have the six MBAs yet. ” “Yep, we need a price.” Number one, can we sell this thing at any price? We did that.

Part-Time VPE 221

Part-Time VPE Technical Cofounder CTO Hire New CTO 221

OpenView Labs

DECEMBER 13, 2019

That’s certainly true in developer tooling (AWS), sales and support (Salesforce), MarTech (Adobe), commerce (Square), HR tech (Workday) and even vertical markets (Veeva). Investors look closely at retention rates as a signal of customer health, product stickiness, competitive differentiation and pricing power. Check it out!

Sales Hiring 52

Sales Hiring Benchmarks AWS Scale 52

OpenView Labs

JUNE 25, 2019

CAC, and more specifically CAC payback (how long it takes to recoup your customer acquisition costs), are key SaaS go-to-market metrics, and leading businesses make the metric a board-level priority and have ongoing discussions to ensure that CAC payback is consistent and predictable. Benchmarking: CAC Payback Goals.

Scale 40

Scale Development Team Review Software Review Benchmarks 40

OPEXEngine

JUNE 11, 2020

The product is hosted by the vendor or a 3 rd party (like AWS). However, many SaaS companies charge for a “premium” version, which in effect, is charging extra for additional services but those services are part of the product pricing.

SaaS Payments 52

SaaS Payments Payment Solutions Subscription Payment Features 52