Clouded Judgement

APRIL 11, 2024

Q4 earnings season for cloud businesses is now behind us. This has all resulted in the median stock price declining 5% YTD. We then dipped below the trendline as we hit the period of “cloud optimizations,” and things have started to rebound. What’s going on with rates (the 10Y has gone from 3.9%

Cloud 177

Cloud Software Azure AWS 177

Tom Tunguz

FEBRUARY 13, 2023

The surge in pipeline is notable given the uncertainty in the market but the close rates are low & sales cycles slow : another confirmatory data point for startups to plan cautiously in 2023. Channel sales have become stronger. I’m adding Cloudflare to the list of tracked companies for this series.

Cloud 225

Cloud Azure Headcount Software Review 225

Clouded Judgement

FEBRUARY 24, 2023

Every week I’ll provide updates on the latest trends in cloud software companies. This week Walmart and Home Depot reported earnings (I know, not the usual cloud software suspects!). One one hand - the economy added >400k jobs in January and retail sales grew 3% month-over-month, both above expectations.

Cloud 130

Cloud Subscription Payment Features Revenue 130

Clouded Judgement

NOVEMBER 17, 2023

Every week I’ll provide updates on the latest trends in cloud software companies. Sales during November have turned higher as unseasonal weather abated and we kicked off holiday events. So sales have been somewhat uneven, and this gives us reason to think slightly more cautiously about the consumer versus 90 days ago.”

Cloud 152

Cloud Subscription Payment Features Trends 152

Clouded Judgement

MARCH 31, 2023

Every week I’ll provide updates on the latest trends in cloud software companies. The only way for software companies to avoid this gross margin compression when incorporating AI features is to raise prices. If we head to their pricing page we’ll see that the most popular plan is $8 / user / month. Double the price!

Cloud 130

Cloud Sales Hiring AI Headcount 130

SaaStr

JANUARY 3, 2022

With the rise of “Product Led Growth” as such a key concept in SaaS, it brings up an age-old question in business software: Should all pricing be transparent? Can you even have a mostly self-service motion in PLG with “Contact Me” in your pricing? But how common is Contact Me in 2022? It’s a mix.

Pricing 248

Pricing Enterprise Cloud B2B 248

Clouded Judgement

NOVEMBER 18, 2022

Every week I’ll provide updates on the latest trends in cloud software companies. Jerry Capital @JerryCap Anyone seen a list of companies that traded at 10x sales and still ended up being multi baggers? Overall, out of my set of 96 cloud software companies, there were 49 that at one point traded >10x NTM from 2015 - 2020.

Cloud 130

Cloud Pricing Investment Revenue 130

Clouded Judgement

OCTOBER 28, 2022

Every week I’ll provide updates on the latest trends in cloud software companies. At the same time, I’d guess we’re seeing discounts on egress fees and a lot of customers shifting from spot pricing (highest marginal cost) to committed contracts (lower marginal cost). Follow along to stay up to date!

Cloud 130

Cloud Azure AWS Cost optimization & reporting 130

Clouded Judgement

SEPTEMBER 8, 2023

Every week I’ll provide updates on the latest trends in cloud software companies. Meanwhile, FCF margins stayed quite strong, with a median Q2 FCF margin of 12% Sales efficiency also dramatically improved in Q2. Subscribe now Share Clouded Judgement Leave a comment Follow along to stay up to date!

Cloud 169

Cloud Software Review AWS Trends 169

Clouded Judgement

DECEMBER 21, 2023

Q3 earnings season for cloud businesses is now behind us. Commentary from the cloud providers seems to be that the major macro headwinds around optimizations and new deal scrutiny have started to abate. ” 3 months later, what happened to those green shoots? So we’d expect the YoY growth rate to pick up in Q3 ‘23.

Cloud 177

Cloud Software Benchmarks Retention 177

Tom Tunguz

APRIL 2, 2021

But the clouds are rolling in for open source companies (pun intended). Today, open source software faces an identity crisis: what does it mean to be an open source company in the cloud? It will determine your price point, your roadmap, your hiring plan, your revenue, and consequently your fundraising prospects.

Cloud 271

Cloud Sales Hiring Banking Enterprise 271

Clouded Judgement

AUGUST 11, 2023

Every week I’ll provide updates on the latest trends in cloud software companies. The weakness they called out was from larger cloud-native businesses. “New logo and new product bookings and deal cycles haven't been impacted by the period of optimization and we continue to see healthy growth on the sales side.

Cloud 130

Cloud Trends Azure GCP(Google Cloud Platform) 130

Clouded Judgement

JUNE 2, 2023

Every week I’ll provide updates on the latest trends in cloud software companies. From SentinelOne: “Macroeconomic pressures continue to impact deal sizes, sales cycles, and pipeline conversion rates. Subscribe now Share Clouded Judgement Leave a comment Follow along to stay up to date! Dispersion!

Cloud 130

Cloud Trends SMB Subscription 130

User Pilot

SEPTEMBER 20, 2023

Optional product pricing can help SaaS companies earn more money while charging less for their otherwise premium product. TL;DR Optional product pricing is a strategy where you sell your core product at a low cost and then encourage consumers to buy more accessories, features, or complementary products.

Pricing 105

Pricing Customer Lifetime Value Advertising Strategy 105

Clouded Judgement

DECEMBER 23, 2022

Every week I’ll provide updates on the latest trends in cloud software companies. For software businesses, generally the sales capacity goes up every quarter (as you ramp more reps), so you want the net new ARR added every quarter to go up. Subscribe now Share Clouded Judgement Leave a comment

Cloud 130

Cloud Sales Hiring Trends Subscription 130

Andreessen Horowitz

MARCH 22, 2024

We’re in the very early days of genAI and until adoption curves and costs stabilize, there won’t be any tried-and-true pricing or packaging frameworks. A good way to learn more about your customer personas and segments is through interviews, surveys, and sales team data. Sales team data. Interviews.

Generative AI 116

Generative AI AI B2B Pricing 116

Clouded Judgement

FEBRUARY 17, 2023

Every week I’ll provide updates on the latest trends in cloud software companies. Retail sales / PPI also came in very hot, supporting the “strong consumer” narrative. Subscribe now Share Clouded Judgement Leave a comment Follow along to stay up to date! Some of the data to support a no-landing.

Cloud 130

Cloud Azure Revenue Subscription 130

Clouded Judgement

JUNE 23, 2023

Every week I’ll provide updates on the latest trends in cloud software companies. I posted a longer recap that you can find here , but wanted to highlight a few trends around growth, net retention, sales efficiency and FCF margins. On sales efficiency (I use gross margin adjusted CAC payback), we saw a huge spike in Q1.

Trends 130

Trends Cloud Retention Subscription 130

SaaStr

MAY 22, 2024

OK Gartner is NOT a SaaS or Cloud company. And its stock price is up +35% the last year, and +192% the past 5 years: 5 Interesting Learnings: #1. About $1m Quotas for 5,000 Sales Reps Gartner is split into two divisions, and interestingly, both have quotas of about $1m per rep. #2. And its very profitable. Not too shabby!

Revenue 219

Revenue Enterprise Cloud Pricing 219

SaaStr

MARCH 19, 2021

The Cloud is expanding and moving forward at a phenomenal rate, so we invited the team at Bessemer Venture Partners back to SaaStr to unveil their latest findings in the 2021 State of the Cloud. Is Cloud growth sustainable for the long term? Is Cloud growth sustainable for the long term? Hello Unicorns . trillion.

Cloud 199

Cloud Scale Payment Methods Payment Solutions 199

SaaStr

SEPTEMBER 19, 2023

Some of the changes we’ve seen in the last year or two include: CAC reduction Headcount optimization Price complexity Quality of revenue A different environment means a different strategy, and Notion Capital lays out four business model changes that could be helpful based on what peers are doing. Then, usage-based pricing took off.

Business Model 257

Business Model SaaS Payments Payments Headcount 257

SaaStr

MARCH 31, 2022

Jessica Alexander, Senior Director Cloud Technology & OEM Partnerships, Crowdstrike. So for the audience, cloud giants are turbocharging startup sales, and the predominant reason for this is because they’re fundamentally changing IT budgets at the customers that we’re all selling to. Rico Mallozzi, Sr.

Scale 211

Scale Marketplace as a Service Cloud SaaS Payments 211

SaaStr

MARCH 27, 2024

So we’ve probably covered HubSpot more than any other SaaS and Cloud leader on this 5 Interesting Learnings series, but there’s a good reason for it: First, HubSpot is a lot like most of us. It sells sales, marketing, support and more tools. So price increases don’t always automatically lead to an ACV / ARPU bump.

Scale 251

Scale Cloud Scaling Pricing 251

Clouded Judgement

SEPTEMBER 12, 2023

Q2 earnings season for cloud businesses is now behind us. As you can see from the data below most cloud businesses beat the consensus estimates for Q2 Source: company filings and Pitchbook consensus estimates Historically, the median beat of consensus estimates is closer to ~4%. However, it’s still a fun data point to track.

Cloud 169

Cloud Software Benchmarks Retention 169

SaaStr

DECEMBER 11, 2023

We pushed through record price increases. The most extreme example of the public Cloud and SaaS companies is Fastly. We saw Cloud and SaaS leaders sending unsolicited 3 year binding contacts to month-to-month customers. And we saw even folks like Slack that had never done a true price increase do one for the first time.

Cloud 301

Cloud Pricing Customer Success Metrics 301

Clouded Judgement

JULY 21, 2023

Every week I’ll provide updates on the latest trends in cloud software companies. They’re often rapidly hiring engineers (to build more features) and sales reps (to sell the product) in attempts to capture the majority of a market against their competition (both other startups and incumbents). ” Quite the claim!

Cloud 130

Cloud Software Sales Hiring Scale 130

SaaStr

NOVEMBER 6, 2023

If you’re selling sales and marketing software, like Zoominfo, it can seem a lot tougher than 12-18 months ago. If you’re selling cloud infrastructure, for the most part, growth may be down a smidge but is still strong, e.g., MongoDB. On top of that, inflation and price increases are eating into overall IT budgets.

Merchant Services 274

Merchant Services Azure Software AWS 274

User Pilot

OCTOBER 24, 2023

From the messaging, positioning, and pricing models, every little detail needs to be perfect for product-led growth to take off. TL;DR Usage-based pricing is a consumption-based pricing model that charges customers based on how much they use a product (instead of at a flat monthly rate). What is usage-based pricing?

Pricing 105

Pricing Payment Solutions SaaS Payments Payments 105

Clouded Judgement

JUNE 20, 2023

Q1 earnings season for cloud businesses is now behind us. The real headwinds to software (tougher expansion, longer sales cycles / procurement, slower new business, budget crunches / RIFs, etc) started last August. But what we’re really looking for is budgets expanding, shortening sales cycles, less pressure on expansion, etc.

Cloud 161

Cloud Software Benchmarks Scale 161

Clouded Judgement

APRIL 12, 2023

Q4 earnings season for cloud businesses is now behind us. As you can see from the data below most cloud businesses beat the consensus estimates for Q4. This quarter more than half of cloud software businesses missed next quarters consensus. They do this to set themselves up to consistently beat estimates, demonstrating momentum.

Cloud 161

Cloud Software Benchmarks Retention 161

Andreessen Horowitz

DECEMBER 8, 2023

Introducing usage-based pricing requires a fundamental mindset shift away from securing cash up front and toward providing value so your customers consume more. The point of usage-based pricing is to create a great experience that encourages your customers to consume, but overages slow down that seamless adoption and usage experience.

Pricing 105

Pricing Scale Forecasting Compensation 105

Clouded Judgement

DECEMBER 20, 2022

Q3 earnings season for cloud businesses is now behind us. As you can see from the data below most cloud businesses beat the consensus estimates for Q3. This quarter more than half of cloud software businesses missed next quarters consensus. They do this to set themselves up to consistently beat estimates, demonstrating momentum.

Cloud 130

Cloud Software Review Software Benchmarks 130

SaaStr

JUNE 29, 2023

As buyers grapple with expanding technology, higher prices, and a need for efficiency, SaaS companies need to deliver what their audience is looking for to win in the market. The Year of the Price Hike In 2023, companies face a hard reality –– SaaS prices are rising. Why are SaaS Prices Increasing? weakest link.

VP of Engineering 251

VP of Engineering Trends Cybersecurity Sales Hiring 251

SaaStr

MAY 5, 2019

Join our Quora group to get all of The Week in Cloud updates throughout the week. The sham began in February, when an unknown user with a Chinese IP address and fake phone number side-stepped Zillow’s security measures and toyed with the sale prices displayed on the mansion’s listing.”. One space in cloud where growth slowed.

Cloud 146

Cloud AWS Pricing Revenue 146

Subscription Flow

DECEMBER 29, 2023

For SaaS businesses, one of the most taxing tasks is to set the right price for their SaaS product and services. There are many pricing plans that SaaS businesses opt for from flat rate to hybrid pricing, you can opt for any pricing plan. If the pricing plan is right, the flow of the recurring revenue remains maintained.

Pricing 59

Pricing Marketplace as a Service Business Transportation 59

Clouded Judgement

JUNE 5, 2023

These goals often include: keeping inflation sustainable (ie prices stable), maintaining sustainable levels of employment (ie low unemployment), and moderating long term interest rates. Likewise, when the Treasury sells government bonds to raise funds, the money it receives from those sales is also deposited into the TGA. In the U.S.,

Payment Services 169

Payment Services Cloud Government Banking 169

Baremetrics

AUGUST 8, 2021

For most, the easiest ways to increase customer acquisition rates are to offer a freemium model or price your product on the lower end of the spectrum. However, to keep your business afloat, you’ll need to effect a SaaS price increase. Ensures You Attract the Right Customers When Should You Increase Your Pricing?

Pricing 111

Pricing SaaS Scale Churn 111