I just read Bert H’s article linked above. While Bert isn’t here to answer, I was wondering how you got to the conclusion above and if anyone else struggles with Bert’s concluding remark in the article:
“my chief takeaway from last quarter was the acceleration in new customer acquisition, rather than the forecast of slowing usage growth.”
Where does that conclusion come from?
Here are the different ways I look at customer acquisition:
Total customers yoy growth:
| YoY | Q1 | Q2 | Q3 | Q4 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2020 | 40% | 38% | 38% | 35% |
| 2021 | 32% | 36% | 34% | 32% |
| 2022 | 30% | 29% | 27% | 23% |
→ Slowing and lowest in many moons.
Sequential customers adds
| Cust adds | Q1 | Q2 | Q3 | Q4 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2019 | 600 | 700 | 1,000 | |
| 2020 | 1,000 | 600 | 1,000 | 1,100 |
| 2021 | 1,000 | 1,200 | 1,100 | 1,300 |
| 2022 | 1,000 | 1,400 | 1,000 | 1,000 |
→ Same as last q, same as Q4 of 3 years ago; down 23% yoy…
>$100k customers yoy growth:
| YoY | Q1 | Q2 | Q3 | Q4 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2019 | 93% | 89% | ||
| 2020 | 84% | 66% | 49% | 43% |
| 2021 | 51% | 60% | 66% | 64% |
| 2022 | 60% | 54% | 44% | 38% |
→ Decelerating.
>$100k customers qoq adds:
| >$100k adds | Q1 | Q2 | Q3 | Q4 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2019 | 86 | 133 | 131 | |
| 2020 | 75 | 51 | 98 | 146 |
| 2021 | 178 | 164 | 230 | 210 |
| 2022 | 240 | 170 | 180 | 180 |
→ Same as last q; down 14% yoy.
>$1m customers yoy growth:
| YoY | Q1 | Q2 | Q3 | Q4 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2019 | 72% | |||
| 2020 | 102% | |||
| 2021 | 114% | |||
| 2022 | 47% |
→ Biiiig Decel.
Where’s that supposed customer growth acceleration?? I don’t see it. Quite the opposite, actually. That’s been my main gripe with DDOG for a while and this Q it just got markedly worse. Am I missing something here?
-WSM