Tom Tunguz

FEBRUARY 26, 2025

Many mid-market software companies price with the goal of revenue maximization, negotiating for the highest possible price in each sale. There are exceptions: Oracle’s database, Tanium’s security product, Workday’s human capital management software. AWS, Twilio, Heroku, etc. Slack is a notable exception.

SaaS Payments 283

SaaS Payments Pricing Strategy Scale 283

Clouded Judgement

MARCH 28, 2025

Every week I’ll provide updates on the latest trends in cloud software companies. Starting and scaling a software company was really hard. If you, as a software company, got to a certain scale and brand awareness, it was really hard for others to catch you. Fast forward to the launch of AWS and the public cloud.

Cloud 299

Cloud AI Scale Scaling 299

Hitenism

NOVEMBER 7, 2016

In 2006, after Amazon Web Services (AWS) helped pioneer what we now call the cloud, product development changed forever. Today, one-third of daily internet users visit websites built on top of AWS. AWS is now an $11.5B Working backwards isn’t a silver bullet that guarantees you success on the scale of AWS.

AWS 189

AWS New CTO Scale CTO 189

SaaStr

APRIL 14, 2025

If youre serious about scaling software, you cant afford to miss it. Whether youre here to learn, network, or just hang out with your B2B peeps, theres no better place to be. SaaStr Annual 2025 is more than just an eventits where the B2B community comes together to learn, grow, and scale.

VP of Engineering 204

VP of Engineering CTO Coach VPCs (Virtual Private Cloud) Scale 204

Tom Tunguz

FEBRUARY 2, 2023

I’m watching public company earnings to identify early weaknesses in the software market. A year ago, AWS, GCP, & Azure averaged 44% annual growth. Amazon: We expect [customer] optimization efforts will continue to be a headwind to AWS growth in at least the next couple of quarters. So

GCP(Google Cloud Platform) 314

GCP(Google Cloud Platform) Cloud AWS Sales Hiring 314

Clouded Judgement

MAY 3, 2024

Every week I’ll provide updates on the latest trends in cloud software companies. Subscribe now Cloud Giants Report Q1 + Early Look at Software Results Q1 earnings seasons has officially kicked off! We now have results from the three hypersclaers (AWS / Azure / GCP). Follow along to stay up to date!

Cost optimization & reporting 190

Cost optimization & reporting Cloud Software Azure 190

Intercom, Inc.

APRIL 19, 2018

Yet competition and the exponential rate of change in software are pushing against that mission. Enter our philosophy of Run Less Software. Our chat covers the origins of Run Less Software, how it has evolved at scale, and how it differs from the equally valid approaches of other engineering teams.

Outsourcing Services 192

Outsourcing Services Part-Time VPE Software AWS 192

SaaStr

DECEMBER 7, 2020

3. “Atlassian and AWS Say: Maybe Worry a Little Bit. Atlassian and AWS, two of the greats, may hold a clue: Atlassian and AWS Say: “Maybe Worry a Little Bit” 4. “A Framework For Your First SaaS Sales Comp Plan” A SaaStr Classic, still going strong in 2020. What a crazy year for Cloud.

Venture Capital 336

Venture Capital Sales Hiring AWS Cloud 336

SaaStr

APRIL 24, 2021

50% revenue from software (recurring), 50% from payments (not-recurring). . Half of its revenues comes from its software. And yes, it’s a software company. Fast forward to day, Merchant Solutions is a much larger share of revenue than software subscriptions. 220m in ARR, $13B market cap.

Merchant Services 360

Merchant Services SaaS Payments Payment Solutions Payment Services 360

Tom Tunguz

OCTOBER 26, 2023

This drop in prices has grown AWS into a $90b revenue business in 17 years. As storage & compute became less expensive, the economic viability of new use cases became increasingly apparent & developers built software on the cloud. Compare that to AWS’ managed database, Aurora, which charges $0.0000002 per request. (I’m

Blockchain 282

Blockchain AWS Pricing Innovation 282

SaaStr

MAY 16, 2022

So follow AWS, Azure and Google Cloud. Let’s look a whole level up to the real canaries-in-the-coalmine: AWS, Azure and Google Cloud. And AWS grew 37% at a $74B run-rate , down a bit from 39% the prior quarter but still adding an insane amount of new revenue. If they stumble, we’re in for a rough patch. They are the Cloud.

Cloud 300

Cloud Azure AWS Engineering 300

Intercom, Inc.

JANUARY 12, 2021

This post is an adaptation of a talk I recently gave at the Amazon Web Services (AWS) community day event in Dublin about the technical strategies I’ve experienced that don’t work and the ones that have helped us to grow and scale at Intercom. At Intercom, we’ve found success running Lambda as glue code between AWS services.

Technical Review 269

Technical Review Scale multi-cloud Kubernetes Scaling 269

Tom Tunguz

NOVEMBER 14, 2022

Some of the brightest minds in data founded MotherDuck including BigQuery founding engineer Jordan Tigani & a broader team from Snowflake, Databricks, AWS, Meta, Elastic & Firebolt, among others. Third, DuckDB can be embedded in software. Motherduck raised a $12.5M Seed led by Redpoint and a $35M Series A led by a16z.

Cloud 356

Cloud AWS Data Analysis Benchmarks 356

SaaStr

NOVEMBER 18, 2023

Shopify , Datadog, Crowdstrike , Google Cloud-Azure-AWS, Snowflake , etc. In fact, Gartner predicts enterprise software spend will cross $1 Trillion Dollars (!) Gartner: Software Spend Will Grow 13.8% At the end of the day, 2024 may well be a year of Divergent Headlines. SaaS and Cloud growth overall will remain strong.

Startup 357

Startup Venture Capital Azure AWS 357

SaaStr

SEPTEMBER 21, 2021

Acadian Software. CEOs, founders and senior execs from the following will be there!! 9Yards Capital. A Cloud Gutu. Activant Capital. Active Capital. Active Prospect. Active Campaign. Acuity Brands. Adams Street. Aurora Solar. Austin Innovation Capital. AuthentiKid. AutoDelegate. Automattic. Auvik Networks Inc. Avataier Corporation.

AWS 322

AWS Innovation Cloud Technology 322

Tom Tunguz

MARCH 8, 2020

The customer success team would like help deploying the software to new customers. By buying Looker, they could offer reporting and analytics to their customers without having to build or maintain the analytics software. Marketplaces: AWS marketplace, Heroku marketplace, Salesforce marketplace. Types of Partnerships.

Scale 349

Scale AWS Consulting Sales Enablement 349

SaaStr

AUGUST 3, 2024

Overall Cloud spending has bounced back off lows for sure: AWS at a $105B run rate growing 19% Quarterly YoY growth trends below. But the reality is a bit more nuanced for enterprise software. Yes, AI has fueled Nvidia and Google Cloud and Microsoft and AWS to massive growth, and growth that has accelerated the past few quarters.

AWS 239

AWS Scale Social Media SaaS 239

SaaStr

SEPTEMBER 10, 2023

I’m using Google Workspace (Gmail, Drive), AWS , Vercel , Slack , Figma , Notion , Salesforce , HubSpot , Secureframe , Clari , and Zapier. #2. Last week we had a great one with Luca Penati, CMO & CCO of BEE, check it out here. This week we have Shrav Mehta, Founder and CEO of Secureframe! #1. What’s your core stack of apps today?

AWS 304

AWS compliance AI Startup 304

SaaStr

DECEMBER 9, 2020

But every business leader has a few top pressing problems that a software vendor can solve. But VPs are still sitting on their computers, struggling to hit their plans, manage their teams, hire the next great engineer, deploy their software releases, and hit their number. Emails get blocked, spam filtered.

Sales Hiring 356

Sales Hiring Outbound Sales Team AWS Engineering 356

Tom Tunguz

APRIL 28, 2022

That’s much more work than the automatic credit card payment with AWS. Perhaps this dynamic drives consolidation in the market, paralleling the web2 infrastructure hypermarts of AWS, GCP, and Azure. Third, software engineers decentralize only a subset of the app. It’s too much complexity for a simple static blog.

Payment Solutions 268

Payment Solutions GCP(Google Cloud Platform) Startup Payment Features 268

SaaStr

MARCH 24, 2025

Customer Expectations Are Skyrocketing AI has raised the bar for what customers expect from software. AI Will Deflate Pricing in Some Areas AI is making some categories of software look expensive. One Thing is Clear: AI Makes a Lot of Business Software Look Awfully Expensive Today. It has to deliver real, tangible value.

AI 147

AI Trends SaaS AWS 147

SaaStr

DECEMBER 26, 2022

Amanda Malko is CMO at G2, a software marketplace and review site that reaches over 60 million buyers annually across 2000 software categories. In this session, she shares insights and trends from research conducted this year that can help software buyers and sellers make smarter decisions about software and the market. .

Software Review 245

Software Review Software Azure Cloud 245

Tom Tunguz

NOVEMBER 28, 2017

How quickly do the fastest growing software companies build their teams? Above, I’ve charted the headcount growth rate for 10 of the fastest growing software companies in recent history. Above, I’ve charted the headcount growth rate for 10 of the fastest growing software companies in recent history.

Headcount 187

Headcount Scaling Software Business 187

Clouded Judgement

MAY 31, 2024

Every week I’ll provide updates on the latest trends in cloud software companies. Subscribe now Software Sentiment Software sentiment is incredibly low at the moment - and rightfully so. Nearly 70% of software companies who reported Q1 with an April quarter end guided Q2 below consensus!

Cloud 184

Cloud Software GCP(Google Cloud Platform) AI 184

SaaStr

APRIL 2, 2023

SaaStr 644: Lessons Learned in Scaling Early-Stage to Hyper-Growth Companies: From VMware, AWS and Databricks with Databricks SVP and GM Ed Lenta  4. Top Obstacles to Making Software Decisions with G2’s VP – Asia Pacific, Chris Perrine  5. SaaStr 643: What’s Holding Up Buyers?: What’s Holding Up Buyers?:

Scale 246

Scale AWS Scaling Enterprise 246

Clouded Judgement

FEBRUARY 7, 2025

Every week I’ll provide updates on the latest trends in cloud software companies. The unlock here of “group + triage + agent” will be the backbone for the next wave of software. They each have some of the largest cloud businesses in the world in AWS, Azure and Google Cloud respectively.

Systems Review 144

Systems Review Cloud AI Artificial Intelligence 144

Clouded Judgement

OCTOBER 11, 2024

Every week I’ll provide updates on the latest trends in cloud software companies. For software companies, this phenomenon can be a tailwind, as it drives accelerated deal closures and increased sales velocity, sometimes with less price sensitivity from buyers looking to quickly deplete their budgets. Cloudflare is up 17%.

Cloud 167

Cloud Cost optimization & reporting GCP(Google Cloud Platform) Software Review 167

Clouded Judgement

APRIL 11, 2024

Is Software Rebounding? It looks at the YoY dollar change in quarterly revenue from the hyperscalers (just looking at Azure / AWS because the data goes back further) going back a few years. I’m calculating FCF by taking the Operating Cash Flow and subtracting CapEx and Capitalized Software Costs.

Cloud 184

Cloud Software Azure AWS 184

Intercom, Inc.

MAY 25, 2022

At Intercom, we aim to run less software. We work exclusively with AWS as our cloud services provider and currently provide data hosting offerings in three different global regions – US, EU, and Australia – each architected across multiple availability zones for high availability. Our tooling allows for high availability.

Scaling 252

Scaling AWS Software Review Technical Review 252

Clouded Judgement

MAY 10, 2024

Every week I’ll provide updates on the latest trends in cloud software companies. Subscribe now Q1 Software Earnings Are… Not Good We’re about halfway through Q1 earnings season, and it’s not been pretty. Follow along to stay up to date! Revenue multiples are a shorthand valuation framework.

Cloud 167

Cloud Software GCP(Google Cloud Platform) Azure 167

SaaStr

DECEMBER 20, 2023

Canva: – Almost $2B ARR – Growing 40%+ – Profitable And … 4,000 employees That's about $500k in revenue per employee That's where software really makes money — Jason ✨Be Kind✨ Lemkin  ?? jasonlk) December 19, 2023 5 Interesting Learnings: #1. That’s awfully impressive.

AWS 312

AWS B2C Scaling AI 312

SaaStr

NOVEMBER 3, 2022

Our mission is to build powerful and secure cloud software for subscription businesses of all sizes, with a strong emphasis on good design and ease of use. Maast offers payments, banking, lending and more as features in software provider’s platforms – with one relationship, contract and integration.

Payments 265

Payments Payment Services GCP(Google Cloud Platform) Payment Solutions 265

Tom Tunguz

OCTOBER 22, 2022

They will manage their own servers to reduce the $3m annual AWS bill by 60%. I wouldn’t be surprised if private equity held software companies adopt this practice to generate extra income in the next few years to offset some of this era’s greater interest expenses on debt.

Sales Hiring 266

Sales Hiring Cloud AWS Sales 266

Tom Tunguz

JULY 7, 2022

Novel infrastructure often enables new software. In a few years, data startups, consumer apps, and software vendors will rise and grow - the same as today. For example, a gaming company might build an app on a classic cloud stack on AWS and offer a decentralized peer-to-peer NFT exchange. ” Or Web2.0 But not anymore.

AWS 244

AWS Government Innovation Cloud 244

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. From Henry’s perspective, their software vertical and tech customers have hit a wall. The worst emotion for software sales is uncertainty.

New CTO 316

New CTO Scale Sales Hiring CTO Hire 316

SaaStr

OCTOBER 13, 2022

Our mission is to build powerful and secure cloud software for subscription businesses of all sizes, with a strong emphasis on good design and ease of use. Our Customer Success software is uniquely designed to integrate with CRM systems and tightly into an application or service.

GCP(Google Cloud Platform) 261

GCP(Google Cloud Platform) Azure AWS Enterprise readiness 261

SaaStr

OCTOBER 6, 2022

We help B2B SaaS marketers turn organic search into a source of repeatable revenue through software and coaching. DuploCloud offers an end-to-end DevOps software platform for dev teams that don’t have dedicated DevOps engineers and augments those that do. Prismatic is the integration platform for B2B software companies.

GCP(Google Cloud Platform) 246

GCP(Google Cloud Platform) Azure AWS Enterprise readiness 246