Newsletter: On top of the Heap (or Stack)!

This time of the year, snowflakes are not what you normally think of – even in Sweden. But a particular snowflake came to mind when an analyst recently asked me to describe Artificial Solutions’ new business model. I am thinking of Snowflake Inc, the software company that recently made a roaring entry on Nasdaq, as a publicly traded company.

Snowflake’s revenue 2020 was a little better than half a billion US dollars. Not bad, but their market cap is – when I write this – 73 billion US dollars, at $250 US dollar per share. Roughly 140 times their revenue. That may seem a bit strange, and even more strange might be an analyst estimate that the right price for the stock should be $350 US dollar per share. That is another 40% up from today’s valuation, and if the market agrees with the analyst, Snowflake will be valued at a little bit above 100 billion US dollars.

Well done!

So, what can other software companies learn from Snowflake? A couple of things:

  • Make sure that the problem you solve is a big one.
  • Put your offering at the right place in the software stack and make sure you address a large market. But…
  • Do not choose the wrong stack. Or market.

The problem Snowflake addresses is one of the biggest there is, and it is growing exponentially. That is; with Snowflake’s solution’s it is easier to make sense of data.

Snowflake is a platform, with tools, connectors, API’s etcetera that makes it a breeze to extract data, and with easy access also to tools from partners – including “frenemies”. Frenemy is software lingo for a partner that is both a competitor and an enabler.

Finally, what stack did Snowflake choose? They choose to place their offering on AWS and Azure, but the market they are addressing is companies that use software from Oracle and Teradata – 2 large database vendors. Between them, they have some 450.000 clients, including every Fortune 500 company.

This is what Snowflakes’ market is all about: the 450.000 companies who have problems making sense of the data in their Oracle and Teradata databases.

I explained all this to the analyst. He then asked if Artificial Solutions is structured in a similar way. And indeed, we are.

The problem we solve is enormous. On average, an individual utters about 16.000 words every day. There are several hundred languages in daily use. On average, a Fortune 500 company have around 50.000 employees and many, many clients, partners, vendors, regulators, etc. Automating big chunks of the communication between all those folks will not only enhance productivity – it will also mitigate risk, make it easier to adhere to regulations and policies, and open the organization for a truly 24/7 transparency.

We are also in the right place in the stack, almost identical to Snowflake’s position.

And what market are we addressing?

There, we differ a bit. We go for helping Microsoft’s customers in partnership with Microsoft.

If you have any questions, or topics you want us to cover please e-mail InvestorRelations@artificial-solutions.com.

Yours, 

Per Ottosson
CEO, Artificial Solutions


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