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. Most public companies don’t report net new ARR, so I’m taking an implied ARR metric (quarterly subscription revenue x 4). Revenue multiples are a shorthand valuation framework.

Cloud 161

Cloud Azure AWS Software Review 161

Clouded Judgement

MARCH 22, 2024

Enterprise software businesses strive for 90-95% gross retention (generally the percent of revenue that sticks with you vs churns altogether), with net expansion in the 120%+ range (the aggregate change in expansion - contraction - churned revenue). Namely, retention!! The biggest culprit is describing non recurring revenue as ARR.

AI 183

AI Revenue Cloud Technical Advisors 183

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

AUGUST 4, 2023

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. Most public companies don’t report net new ARR, so I’m taking an implied ARR metric (quarterly subscription revenue x 4). Revenue multiples are a shorthand valuation framework.

Cloud 130

Cloud Azure Cost optimization & reporting AWS 130

Clouded Judgement

OCTOBER 28, 2022

Hyperscalers Report Quarterly Earnings This week we saw AWS (Amazon), GCP (Google) and Azure (Microsoft) report earnings. At the same time, Azure came in below expectations. Azure called out an incremental $800m of costs expected throughout the year (they just finished their Fiscal Q1).

Cloud 130

Cloud Azure AWS Cost optimization & reporting 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.

Trends 130

Trends Cloud Azure AWS 130

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. Azure : Coming into the quarter, a growth rate that would have satisfied the market would have been ~29%. Azure came in at 31% (constant currency). Follow along to stay up to date!

Cloud 130

Cloud Azure AWS AI Search 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. This week we had two of the hypserscalers report (Microsoft / Azure and Google / GCP), and everyone was eager to see their results. The bars represent the YoY revenue growth, and the yellow line is the stock price.

Cloud 130

Cloud Azure AWS GCP(Google Cloud Platform) 130

Clouded Judgement

JANUARY 27, 2023

Azure (Microsoft) Quarter The week the first of the cloud giants reported - Azure. Early Look at 2023 Guides Given the Azure weakness reported on Tuesday, all software tumbled Wednesday morning with most names down 5-10%. Every week I’ll provide updates on the latest trends in cloud software companies.

Cloud 141

Cloud Azure Pricing Subscription 141

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

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. Most public companies don’t report net new ARR, so I’m taking an implied ARR metric (quarterly subscription revenue x 4). The Q4 ‘22 growth rate was 38% YoY.

Cloud 130

Cloud Azure AWS GCP(Google Cloud Platform) 130

Clouded Judgement

MAY 26, 2023

Azure / Confluent / Datadog reported a few weeks back (they all had March quarter ends), and their commentary suggested the worst was behind us. An element of re-acceleration is definitely priced in to current 2024 estimates, so we may see 2024 estimates fall. This means we got commentary for the first time on May trends.

Cloud 141

Cloud Azure Trends Retention 141

Clouded Judgement

AUGUST 11, 2023

The good news is gross retention (ie churn) stayed constant. If next quarter we get similar commentary that Azure gave us this quarter (“still a couple quarters away” without any specific guidance), then we may see market loose a little patience. The weakness they called out was from larger cloud-native businesses.

Cloud 130

Cloud Trends Azure GCP(Google Cloud Platform) 130

Clouded Judgement

JUNE 20, 2023

net retention and CAC payback). On the Microsoft earnings call they said (related to Azure): “But at some point, workloads just can't be optimized much further. The market is clearly pricing in lower rates + reacceleration of growth. Subscribe now Do We See a Light at the End of the Tunnel?

Cloud 161

Cloud Software Benchmarks Scale 161

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. In this approach, you’re paying a lot to reps for retention. The lines will blur.

Compensation 161

Compensation Sales Azure AWS 161

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. Model providers (OpenAI, Anthropic, etc as companies start building out AI).

Cloud 183

Cloud Artificial Intelligence AI GCP(Google Cloud Platform) 183

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

FEBRUARY 17, 2023

As you can tell, there’s a BIG drop-off projected in 2023 Like Azure, they called for a big slowdown of consumption trends in the month of December. Most public companies don’t report net new ARR, so I’m taking an implied ARR metric (quarterly subscription revenue x 4).

Cloud 130

Cloud Azure Revenue Subscription 130

Clouded Judgement

NOVEMBER 3, 2023

Maybe with the exception of hyperscalers (particularly Azure). But for now, these are my views 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.

Software Review 161

Software Review Cloud Software Azure 161

User Pilot

APRIL 30, 2024

Appcues enhances user onboarding, adoption , and retention with targeted walkthroughs, in-app messaging, and feature adoption tools. Quickbooks and Xero are accounting SaaS products that help you send invoices, track expenses, and process payroll. You don’t handle maintenance or updates. What are the benefits of the SaaS model?

SaaS Payments 100

SaaS Payments Payment Services Payment Methods Payment Solutions 100

Chart Mogul

APRIL 7, 2022

With ChartMogul you can quickly build segments to apply across all of your charts, helping you discover which pricing plans are most profitable, which customer profiles are likely to convert, and who your great-fit customers really are. ChartMogul is offering all of those features at a lower price. The list goes on.

Payment Features 52

Payment Features Systems Review Churn Azure 52

Full Session

NOVEMBER 6, 2022

Mixpanel and Amplitude can analyze user journeys, conversion rates, and drop-offs, measure user engagement, and identify retention drivers. Increasing retention rates. Mixpanel connects to 50+ popular software, including Google Cloud, Amazon Web Services, Hubspot, Microsoft Azure, Optimizely, Slack, Snowflake, and Zendesk.

Software Review 52

Software Review Underperforming Technical Team Business Technical Review 52

Full Session

NOVEMBER 16, 2022

We’ll also consider language, customer support, reviews, and pricing options. Increasing retention rates. Mixpanel also offers a decent list of integrations, with over 50 apps, including Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure, Google Cloud, Hubspot, Slack, Snowflake, and Zendesk. Mixpanel vs Google Analytics: Pricing.

Software Review 52

Software Review Sales Hiring Technical Review Underperforming Technical Team 52

SaaStr

AUGUST 22, 2020

This will be a really strong indicator of retention and recruiting. I think that there is probably another couple orders of magnitude of growth in these markets, which is why I don’t get that energized by like, “Okay, is Azure in the lead? It’s easy to buy more and it’s easy to have recurring subscriptions.

Sales Recruiting 148

Sales Recruiting Cloud CTO Hire Scale 148