Clouded Judgement

NOVEMBER 10, 2023

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

Cloud 190

Cloud Artificial Intelligence GCP(Google Cloud Platform) AI 190

Clouded Judgement

JULY 26, 2024

Open source is now on par with state of the art proprietary models. This will have important implications on the business models / profit margins of key model players. I asked ChatGPT how many price changes AWS has made to S3 since it’s inception in 2006, and the answer it gave me was 65. The Llama 3.1

Cloud 144

Cloud Technical Review Artificial Intelligence Software Review 144

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

Tom Tunguz

AUGUST 3, 2014

Advertising-driven models, SaaS business models, consumer hardware and marketplaces are all represented in the earnings figures so far. But Amazon’s massive EPS miss has more to do with large scale capital investment in AWS than a lack of a profitable business or customer base.

Startup 100

Startup Trends AWS Marketing 100

CloudGeometry

MARCH 3, 2022

Feature value: a function of time investment of users and customers The set of problems that your SaaS solves won’t survive long in the digital age if all it does is cut prices. Think beyond the cloud about what other resources you need to invest in making customers successful with your platform.

Well Architected Framework 130

Well Architected Framework VPCs (Virtual Private Cloud) SaaS Cloud 130

Clouded Judgement

MARCH 31, 2023

How Will AI Effect Software Business Models? Like many, I’ve been thinking about how AI and foundation models will effect the world of software. In particular - how AI will effect software business models. There are two main topics I’ve been pondering lately: Margins.

Cloud 130

Cloud Sales Hiring AI Headcount 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 113

Cloud Scale AWS Artificial Intelligence 113

Chargify

FEBRUARY 1, 2018

These forward-thinking businesses are using diverse monetization strategies to better serve their customers and differentiate their offers from the competition. Amazon Web Services (AWS) is a poster-child for the Relationship Economy—they truly understand the modern B2B customer. with numerous upsell and cross-sell opportunities.

Payment Features 75

Payment Features Subscription AWS Scale 75

Intercom, Inc.

JANUARY 24, 2019

It’s less expensive than it’s ever been in terms of actually getting a product to market, whether it’s leveraging platforms like Salesforce or GCP or AWS or Heroku. John: You guys have made a lot of investments or bets on early stage companies. There are plenty of companies that actually have that initial success.

Scale 151

Scale Artificial Intelligence Machine Learning Technical Review 151

SaaStr

APRIL 30, 2022

It wasn’t the case 20 or even 10 years ago, where the business models of the internet were more focused on eCommerce, marketplaces, or even advertising. I believe pricing is not enough … There’s not enough investment from companies going into pricing and thinking about pricing. This wasn’t the case.

SaaS Payments 246

SaaS Payments Metrics Payment Methods Scale 246

Outseta

JANUARY 20, 2020

In this post I’m going to share the most important lessons about growing a SaaS business that I learned at Buildium—collectively, these things had an awful lot to do with the company being valued so highly. At this point Buildium raised $2M from K1 Capital , investing the money primarily in marketing and hiring.

SaaS Payments 145

SaaS Payments Sales Hiring Payment Methods Payment Services 145

Stax

APRIL 18, 2024

While they operate under different business models, ISVs and SaaS share similarities in software development, cross-platform accessibility, and industry reach. ISVs and SaaS providers differ in software distribution, licensing models, hosting responsibilities, support options, upgrade and maintenance procedures, and scalability.

Outsourcing Services 88

Outsourcing Services SaaS Payments Payment Services Payment Methods 88

Frontegg

MAY 27, 2021

This philosophy applies to both low and high touch business models, where the vendor has to eliminate all potential usability problems that may arise. 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: Product Adoption.

Payment Solutions 98

Payment Solutions SaaS Payments Payments Scale 98

User Pilot

APRIL 30, 2024

This article will look at the most successful SaaS companies, so you can decide if you want to invest in them for your business. Cloud computing offers three main service models: SaaS for ready-to-use software, PaaS for application development frameworks, and IaaS for scalable virtualized computing resources.

SaaS Payments 104

SaaS Payments Payment Methods Payment Services Payment Solutions 104

OPEXEngine

JUNE 11, 2020

The terms aren’t universally understood, nor are the implications of each on the financial model of a company, so the following is an effort to provide an overview. At OPEXEngine, we pull apart the different nuances of each business model to make sure we are benchmarking companies correctly.

SaaS Payments 52

SaaS Payments Payment Solutions Payment Features Subscription 52

OpenView Labs

DECEMBER 2, 2020

The Blockbuster/Netflix situation is one of the most frequently cited examples: A newcomer arrives on the scene with a better business model than the incumbent, and the incumbent doesn’t mimic the new model for fear of damaging their existing business. This kind of scenario happens all the time.

Marketing 54

Marketing AWS Scale Development 54

OpenView Labs

DECEMBER 15, 2020

Cloud marketplaces like AWS Marketplace, Azure Marketplace and Google Cloud Platform Marketplace are digital storefronts where companies can list their offerings for software buyers to find, purchase and provision software. . Tackle’s survey found that 70% of sellers are ready to invest more in marketplaces as a go-to-market strategy.

Marketplace as a Service 52

Marketplace as a Service Cloud Scale VP of Engineering 52

Chart Mogul

OCTOBER 18, 2019

This is already at play — services like AWS, Stripe, and others have brought down the cost of starting and running a business to a fraction of what they used to be just a decade ago. Consumerizing even more parts of the activities of a typical business (logistics-as-a-service, etc.) doubling the number of leads).

Scale 71

Scale SaaS Automotive AWS 71

ProfitWell

MAY 12, 2020

For businesses that want nearly the same level of control as an on-premise solution without the expense of upkeep, and with the added speed and flexibility of cloud computing, IaaS is a logical choice. This option will require significantly more time investment from an IT department than either of the other two options will.

Cloud 59

Cloud Azure SaaS Underperforming Technical Team 59

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. AI Integrations.

SaaS Payments 66

SaaS Payments Trends Merchant Services Payments 66

Hacking Revenue

FEBRUARY 26, 2016

While these services significantly lowered the costs of starting a new business, I believe that the people who said that sentence were missing the point of starting a business – to build an always growing, sustainable brand. It is also what sets you up for long term business model and success. Probably even more.

Outsourcing Services 53

Outsourcing Services Branding Outsourced Development Scale 53

Blulogix

NOVEMBER 8, 2023

Here are some notable examples: Cloud Computing Major cloud providers like AWS, Azure, and Google Cloud offer pay-as-you-go pricing, enabling businesses to access computing resources based on their actual usage. Investing in robust billing and invoicing systems. Providing clear and transparent pricing models for customers.

Technology 52

Technology Pricing Payment Features Subscription 52

OpenView Labs

FEBRUARY 11, 2021

For example, 84% GM means that for every dollar of product sold, a business keeps 84 cents. As a founder, you can use this 84 cents to pay salaries, office rent, dividends, or invest in R&D. While inevitable and with multivariate causality, it speaks to the product’s maturity and business model.

Scale 52

Scale Payment Methods Payment Services Systems Review 52

SaaStr

AUGUST 20, 2019

Sameer Dhokalia: It turns out if you do ask those two basic questions of 100 people in your business, you will learn an awful lot about what needs to be focused on. You got a lot of overhead, and there’s all these regulations, and you got to do these earnings calls, and invest in investor marketing. I love Jeff.

Scale 160

Scale Acquisition Scaling Sales Hiring 160

Chart Mogul

OCTOBER 18, 2019

This is already at play — services like AWS, Stripe, and others have brought down the cost of starting and running a business to a fraction of what they used to be just a decade ago. Consumerizing even more parts of the activities of a typical business (logistics-as-a-service, etc.) doubling the number of leads).

Scale 52

Scale SaaS Automotive AWS 52

Andreessen Horowitz

MARCH 5, 2024

So when we all talk about changing the healthcare industry, how messed up it is, and how it’s awful and everybody hates it, you know who’s responsible for it being a mess? It’s our… starting with me, my ignorance, your ignorance, that keeps this business in business. Not the government. Not the big PBMs.

Healthcare 110

Healthcare Government Entrepreneurship Pricing 110

OpenView Labs

OCTOBER 23, 2019

Deciding which brilliant idea to pursue as an actual business is a big deal. I’ve launched multiple companies, and I know that when you choose to turn a vision into reality, you’re committing to investing seven to fifteen years of your life in the project. Fast forward to 2013, and a lot had changed.

Innovation 41

Innovation Outsourced Development AWS Technology 41

ProfitWell

SEPTEMBER 25, 2019

One of the most famous lines from Citizen Kane is, “It's no trick to make an awful lot of money, if that's all you want is to do is make a lot of money.” That’s never been truer for software businesses in particular than in the past 10-15 years, with the internet stimulating an explosion in the number of viable revenue models.

Payments 40

Payments Revenue Payment Methods SaaS Payments 40

OpenView Labs

JUNE 25, 2019

As an important aside, it’s worth noting that product led growth (PLG) companies have a shorter CAC payback than companies with a traditional sales & marketing driven go-to-market model. Invest some time and resources into ensuring that users encounter as little friction as possible on their way to buying.

Scale 40

Scale Development Team Review Software Review Benchmarks 40

Mucker Capital

APRIL 6, 2023

Are there types of companies, market segments, industries, or business models where PLG does not make sense? If you have a very complicated product–for example you sell AWS or you sell Snowflake–those are infrastructure products. You need to invest at least a year or even two years. Hila is a mentor with Mucker Capital.

Startup 52

Startup Scale CTO Hire Outsourced Development 52

SaaStr

JULY 20, 2021

It’s a brutal, awful slog in the start. I would say, it’s always good to call out just how awful it is to be a founder, to be an entrepreneur, because that is a unique perspective that you bring to the board room that no one else shares. The angel investors are people who invest their own money. David : Here we go.

Underperforming Technical Team 246

Underperforming Technical Team Sales Hiring AWS Business Model 246

Intercom, Inc.

DECEMBER 31, 2019

The wave of SaaS companies that built themselves on the likes of AWS and Azure have reinforced the pre-eminence of cloud computing. What was perhaps less predictable was the ensuing prevalence of the subscription-based business model.

Payment Solutions 259

Payment Solutions Payment Methods Software SaaS Payments 259

Intercom, Inc.

DECEMBER 13, 2018

As Workplace’s global head, Julien Codorniou has been spending the past few years exploring how to make his department align with Facebook’s mission while executing an entirely different business model that relies on companies promoting community within their workforce. Workplace is about connecting people.

Scale 151

Scale Marketplace as a Service Mobile Sales Hiring 151

Sales Hacker

JANUARY 7, 2025

With a background that includes leadership roles at AWS, Microsoft, and Lenovo, Fred brings a wealth of experience in building high-performing teams and driving revenue growth. Okay, let’s go on invest. But I would say the first mental model is always to look at early signal. They cannot resell.

Outsourcing Services 119

Outsourcing Services Scale Outsourced Development AWS 119

Casey Accidental

DECEMBER 11, 2023

To continue its growth, instead of investing in new product value, Eventbrite kept grafting new growth loops onto this core loop to acquire more event creators and drive more ticket sales per event, creating a much more complicated growth model that looks like the below. This is what I realized when I joined Eventbrite.

Payments 113

Payments Scale Payment Solutions Technical Review 113

SaaStr

APRIL 24, 2020

John Mellor: But then probably the biggest transition was watching Adobe transition into the subscription business model with its Creative Cloud product as it’s known today. ” Clearly, Wall Street and the Adobe team knew the benefit of a subscription business model and the transition into SaaS.

Scale 239

Scale Leadership Technology Strategy 239

ProfitWell

NOVEMBER 5, 2019

Yes, they might kick the can down the road a little longer, but they only delay the inevitable while giving customers an awful experience in the meantime. The key feature separating subscription businesses from their more standard counterparts is the recurring nature of payments. Of course, you know better.

Payment Features 49

Payment Features Subscription Payment Methods Merchant Services 49