Clouded Judgement

MAY 3, 2024

We now have results from the three hypersclaers (AWS / Azure / GCP). The most notable change in tone was Andy Jassy talking about AWS. Given most software companies are not profitable, or not generating meaningful FCF, it’s the only metric to compare the entire industry against.

Cost optimization & reporting 190

Cost optimization & reporting Cloud Software Azure 190

SaaStr

APRIL 3, 2021

There’s a metric the very top founders track quitely, but ruthlessly, that I find other founders either don’t track, or sort of hide from. DigitalOcean is growing more slowly than its mega competitors Azure, AWS, etc. That’s % of marketshare. And importantly, if it’s growing, or shrinking. More here. #2.

Azure 240

Azure Headcount AWS Education 240

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. ” Microsoft on Azure : “And I think last quarter, we said one, we are going to continue to have these cycles where people will build new workloads. Follow along to stay up to date!

Cost optimization & reporting 167

Cost optimization & reporting Cloud Azure AWS 167

Clouded Judgement

APRIL 11, 2024

Through these interactions, I’ve built up mental benchmarks for metrics on which I place extra emphasis. My hope is that this analysis can provide startup entrepreneurs with a framework for how to manage their businesses around SaaS metrics (e.g., This metric is more self-explanatory, so I won’t go into detail.

Cloud 184

Cloud Software Azure AWS 184

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. Then AWS appeared to add fuel to that hope before giving us a huge rug pull. Azure came in at 31% (constant currency). They then guided to 26-27% Azure growth in Q2.

Cloud 130

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

Cloud 167

Cloud Azure AWS Software Review 167

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. 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 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%. At the same time, Azure came in below expectations. Follow along to stay up to date!

Cloud 130

Cloud Azure AWS Cost optimization & reporting 130

Clouded Judgement

SEPTEMBER 27, 2024

Subscribe now Foundation Models Are to AI what S3 was to the Public Cloud Many people look at 2006 as the birth of the public cloud - the year Amazon launched AWS. Microsoft launched Azure in 2010, and Google launched GCP to the public in 2011 (they launched a preview of Google App Engine in 2008, but made it publicly available in 2011).

Cloud 176

Cloud GCP(Google Cloud Platform) AWS Azure 176

Clouded Judgement

AUGUST 2, 2024

Cloud Giants Report Q2 We also got the Q2 quarters from AWS / Azure / GCP this week! Given most software companies are not profitable, or not generating meaningful FCF, it’s the only metric to compare the entire industry against. I created this subset to show companies where FCF is a relevant valuation metric.

Cloud 157

Cloud Azure GCP(Google Cloud Platform) AWS 157

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%. 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.

Cloud 130

Cloud Azure AWS Cost optimization & reporting 130

SaaStr

MARCH 17, 2023

They can provide big-picture ROI, but they don’t have hard ROI metrics, benchmarks, and success stories. We’re seeing a growing trend of buyers making SaaS purchases through global marketplaces such as the AWS Marketplace and Azure Marketplace. If you have an in-depth ROI figure, talk to customers very early about this value.

Marketplace as a Service 246

Marketplace as a Service Software Review Technical Review Azure 246

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. On AWS, in their Q4 earnings call they said AWS was growing “mid teens” in January (down from 20% in Q4). The Q4 ‘22 growth rate was 38% YoY.

Cloud 130

Cloud Azure AWS GCP(Google Cloud Platform) 130

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 167

Cloud Software GCP(Google Cloud Platform) Azure 167

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!

Cloud 130

Cloud Azure AWS GCP(Google Cloud Platform) 130

Clouded Judgement

JUNE 9, 2023

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. They guided to 26-27% growth in Azure in Q2 (with 1% coming from AI). Their consumption is driven by usage of applications built on top of Mongo.

Trends 130

Trends Cloud Azure AWS 130

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 when this happens, growth companies transition to more of a value based valuation metric (FCF or PE). I created this subset to show companies where FCF is a relevant valuation metric.

Cloud 184

Cloud Software GCP(Google Cloud Platform) AI 184

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.

Cloud 190

Cloud Artificial Intelligence GCP(Google Cloud Platform) AI 190

Clouded Judgement

MARCH 22, 2024

Subscribe now ARR (Annual Recurring Revenue) vs ERR (Experimental Runrate Revenue) ARR (Annual Recurring Revenue) is one of the most popular SaaS (Non-GAAP) metrics. However, it’s also one of the most loosely used metrics, and is frequently misused. I created this subset to show companies where FCF is a relevant valuation metric.

AI 190

AI Cloud Revenue Technical Advisors 190

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. Rather than compensating based on ARR, it’s based on a volume and quality-based metric. There are still some complexities around SaaS-based approaches. This is MongoDB’s approach.

Compensation 169

Compensation Sales Azure AWS 169

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. 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 AWS Generative AI 130

Clouded Judgement

AUGUST 11, 2023

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 hyperscalers (AWS, Azure, GCP) are seeing some uptick, but this is largely from selling compute (ie cloud GPUs).

Cloud 130

Cloud Trends Azure GCP(Google Cloud Platform) 130

Chart Mogul

JANUARY 28, 2022

A few months ago, we retired our last pieces of infrastructure on DigitalOcean, marking our migration to AWS as complete. Our journey was not your regular AWS migration as it involved moving our infrastructure from classic VMs to containers orchestrated by Kubernetes. Ultimately, we decided to go with AWS. Team expertise.

K8S orchestration (Kubernetes) 52

K8S orchestration (Kubernetes) AWS EKS (Elastic Kubernetes Service) GCP(Google Cloud Platform) 52

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

CloudGeometry

FEBRUARY 7, 2022

The AWS Well-Architected Framework is one such approach that helps adopt architectural best practices (whether or not you run on AWS) and adapt continuously. Another essential benefit of identity in a tenant context is that it aids in capturing and analyzing events from logs & metrics.

Well Architected Framework 130

Well Architected Framework SaaS AWS Construction 130

Frontegg

JUNE 17, 2021

This will let you achieve optimal security and performance metrics, but these boxes will not be fully utilized. Going the Amazon Web Services (AWS) route? Your SaaS tech stack should ideally be powered by Python, React, and AWS programming combo. Picking the right SaaS architecture model for your business is very important.

ECS (Elastic Container Service) 97

ECS (Elastic Container Service) multi-cloud Kubernetes K8S orchestration (Kubernetes) EKS (Elastic Kubernetes Service) 97

Clouded Judgement

SEPTEMBER 19, 2023

Typical data lake storage solutions include AWS S3, Azure Data Lake Storage (ADLS), Google Cloud Storage (GCS) or Hadoop Distributed File System (HDFS). The warehouse is then optimized for efficient access (typically through SQL) to that data, with a number of other properties layered in (like governance, access, security, etc).

Data 130

Data Government Scale GCP(Google Cloud Platform) 130

SaaStr

JUNE 26, 2024

You can see the growth on the platform side with Azure, Google, and AWS and how much it’s accelerating in AI. To some extent, it’s not clear. Maybe endless price increases,” Jason says. A lot of it is moving to versions of AI. How does a startup benefit from this? Dell fell 15% last week.

CTO Hire 141

CTO Hire AI Venture Capital Sales Hiring 141

User Pilot

APRIL 29, 2024

Service providers like Amazon Web Services (AWS), Google Cloud Platform, and Microsoft Azure offer server hosting and load-balancing services. Service providers like Amazon Web Services (AWS), Google Cloud Platform (GCP), and Microsoft Azure offer infrastructure services that support backend development.

Azure 52

Azure GCP(Google Cloud Platform) AWS Construction 52

Audacix

JUNE 9, 2023

AWS WAF is a great option for software and DevOps teams that are already using AWS services or looking for a scalable and flexible WAF solution. AWS WAF is a great option for software and DevOps teams that are already using AWS services or looking for a scalable and flexible WAF solution.

Software Review 66

Software Review Software DevOps as a Service AWS 66

ProfitWell

MAY 12, 2020

ProfitWell — SaaS B2B company ProfitWell has a number of software products designed to help SaaS companies improve their outcomes, including the free ProfitWell Metrics analytics software for SaaS. AWS — Amazon Web Services is perhaps the most used of the cloud infrastructure options. Every business is unique.

Cloud 59

Cloud Azure SaaS Underperforming Technical Team 59

ProfitWell

MAY 15, 2020

Google Compute Engine (GCE), Digital Ocean, and Amazon Web Services (AWS) are all good examples of IaaS. Some PaaS examples include Windows Azure, Google App Engine, and Force.com. You can get started with a pricing audit, completely free through ProfitWell Metrics to see where you need to improve in terms of pricing.

SaaS Payments 75

SaaS Payments Payment Services Payment Solutions Payments 75

Baremetrics

DECEMBER 7, 2023

The main benefits of categorizing your SaaS company’s expenses are more accurate metrics and forecasts, and getting a better understanding of your company’s overall spending. While not a GAAP-metric, it’s widely adopted and understood (examples here , here and here ). This is a v2.0

Startup 90

Startup Merchant Services DevOps as a Service SaaS 90

SaaStr

SEPTEMBER 13, 2020

We’ve all seen AWS and what they’ve done with their platform. Azure has been gaining on them rapidly and is growing a double that rate. Number two, we really want companies to report and track these metrics early. We should all, if we have strong metrics, strong revenue retention, we should be confident to do this.

Sales Hiring 229

Sales Hiring Scale Payments Cloud 229

OPEXEngine

DECEMBER 7, 2021

It has tended to be used most in infrastructure platforms, like AWS, Google Cloud, and Azure. Closely watched SaaS metrics. Companies with the best net dollar retention (NDR) and customer acquisition costs (CAC), two other closely watched SaaS metrics, also tend to rely on usage-based pricing. But that has been changing.

Subscription 52

Subscription Payment Features Pricing Venture Capital 52

Stax

APRIL 18, 2024

Microsoft Azure, Amazon Web Services (AWS), or Salesforce AppExchange). Customers only pay based on the number of users, the volume of data processed, or other usage metrics each period. For ISVs, this means developing applications that can run on various platforms such as Windows, macOS, Apple, or Android.

Outsourcing Services 88

Outsourcing Services SaaS Payments Payment Services Payment Methods 88

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. Get ProfitWell Metrics.

SaaS Payments 66

SaaS Payments Trends Merchant Services Payments 66