B2B Companies Mask Declining Customer Growth

A B2B analyst warns that masking slowing net-new customer acquisition—through price increases, premium tiers, NRR emphasis, and multi-year deals—can temporarily sustain revenue yet indicates harvesting rather than planting. Citing firms such as HubSpot ($3B ARR, 17% new-customer growth), Snowflake ($1.2B quarterly revenue; customers up 20% to 12,621) versus PagerDuty (5% YoY growth) and Zoom (enterprise customers down from 220,000 to 192,400 in 2024), the piece links declining acquisition to long-term vulnerability.