SaaSletter - Cloud Cost Optimization + SaaS Headcount Trends
Plus more from Patrick Campbell + Hemant Mohapatra
Cloud Cost Optimization
From hyper-scaler earnings calls to Instacart’s S-1 disclosing its Snowflake costs, cloud cost optimization has been top of mind in 2023.
So we’re excited to debut this podcast episode with Ben Schaechter, Co-Founder + CEO of Vantage, a pure-play cloud cost optimization platform covering over $1 billion in spend that recently raised a $21m Series A from a16z + Scale Venture Partners.
For our many readers on the buyside, Vantage publishes quarterly Cloud Cost Reports that might have signal for your work
NEW SaaS Employment Index
We are excited to debut a new research series tracking headcount across 3,500+ US-headquartered, private software companies.
Some notes from 1st edition (through June 2023):
38% of SaaS companies with 100+ employees have had a decline in headcount in the past 6 months
However, only ~4% have had a decline of more than 10%
We are also offering deep dives at the functional level for each of Sales and Marketing:
Downloadable slides - including last 12 months data - are available here:
https://research.cloudratings.com/view/344790868/
Since we are creating this analysis from scratch, comparative data to other periods - i.e. vs Q4 2022 - is unavailable. That said, we will add comparisons as we go forward.
Curated Links + Tweets
Patrick Campbell makes a strong case for owned media - customer acquisition cost growth has been far below other B2B channels:
An apt quote from Hemant Mohapatra of Lightspeed India (h/t Gavin Baker):
Efficiency patterns are durable:
And finally, interim updates on our (peaking?) trend tracking for
#1 - AI search interest for the Big 3 Clouds (400+ keywords) → a directional proxy for the “AI Maker” side of the market
