Cloud Stocks and PaaS: Reporting Developer Ecosystem Metrics

Recently, I wrote Cloud Stocks and PaaS: Which SaaS Players Will Win in
PaaS, articulating a vision for a large number of SaaS players evolving into PaaS ecosystems.

We’ve been talking to and covering many of the PaaS players and their efforts in this direction.

One issue I would like to highlight in this analysis is how developer ecosystem metrics are currently being reported.

For any equity analyst to factor a PaaS strategy into their commentary, metrics are essential.

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Cloud Stocks and PaaS: Platform vs. API Ecosystems

Last month, I wrote Cloud Stocks and PaaS: Which SaaS Players Will Win in PaaS, articulating a vision for a large number of SaaS players evolving into PaaS ecosystems.

I’m going to double click down today on the trend and explore two aspects of the ecosystems we currently see: Platforms and APIs.

The Salesforce PaaS is a true platform ecosystem, and has produced a number of consequential companies. Other examples of platform ecosystems include Atlassian (25,000 developers) and Snowflake (45,000 developers). 

On the other hand, several PaaS ecosystems have emerged through API integrations. Twilio, Shopify, Wix, Zendesk, Hubspot, Pagerduty and many others are following API strategies.

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Big Idea 2021: SaaS Companies Will Create 10 Million Jobs

I am writing this based on numerous conversations I have had over the last 18 months with SaaS CEOs, ALL of whom are here on LinkedIn.

My prediction: Starting in 2021, the SaaS industry will be on a path to create 10 million jobs. 

The Platform IFs:

• IF 1000 SaaS companies open up their platforms as a service, PaaS, as Salesforce.com does, by 2025
• IF each platform lets startups sell through its marketplace, as Salesforce.com does, by 2025
• IF each platform empowers 1000 startups to build on its stack by 2025
• IF each startup reaches $1M in annual revenue by 2030
• IF each startup hires an average of 10 employees by 2030

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484th 1Mby1M Entrepreneurship Podcast With Dr. Bhramar Mukherjee, University of Michigan

How Long Do Entrepreneurs Need to Plan For? Dr. Bhramar Mukherjee, Professor of Biostatistics, Epidemiology and Public Health at the University of Michigan, discusses the timeline of the pandemic to help our entrepreneurs understand how to plan ahead.

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PaaS: Bootstrapping by Piggybacking

We’ve discussed all kinds of creative bootstrapping mechanisms in this series. My #BigIdeas2020 contribution is yet another technique that I believe would be particularly relevant and powerful going forward.