Q4 earnings season for cloud businesses is now behind us. The 62 companies that I’ll discuss here (which is not an exhaustive list, but is still comprehensive) all reported quarterly earnings sometime between Jan 24th – March 27th. In this post, I’ll take a data-driven approach in evaluating the overall group’s performance, and highlight individual standouts along the way. As a venture capitalist, I naturally cater my analysis through the lens of a private investor. Over my years as a VC, I’ve had the opportunity to meet with hundreds of entrepreneurs who are all building special companies. 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., net retention and CAC payback).
Jamin - these quarterly reports are always some of your best and most interesting posts. Thanks. As per FactSet, 71% of SP 500 companies that have issued Q1 guidance have issued negative EPS guidance for Q1. Some of the most "debby-downer" guidance since Q3 2019 and Q1 2023. For tech stocks, the hyperscalers will set the tone starting next week.
Re: the green shoots we are seeing in cloud/SaaS...perhaps this is the best time for these stocks before they take off. Timing their bottom is not easy and when they are most pessimistic is historically a good time to consider them for a tech portfolio. Cheers!
Jamin - these quarterly reports are always some of your best and most interesting posts. Thanks. As per FactSet, 71% of SP 500 companies that have issued Q1 guidance have issued negative EPS guidance for Q1. Some of the most "debby-downer" guidance since Q3 2019 and Q1 2023. For tech stocks, the hyperscalers will set the tone starting next week.
Re: the green shoots we are seeing in cloud/SaaS...perhaps this is the best time for these stocks before they take off. Timing their bottom is not easy and when they are most pessimistic is historically a good time to consider them for a tech portfolio. Cheers!
may I ask where you take the data from? i checked only FCF of Gitlab and I see only 5% (with SBC). You show 15%.
Thanks!
Absolutely incredible work here, Jamin. Thank you for taking the time to put this together 🙏