by Tien Tzuo

This morning, we announced that we signed up over $1 billion in contracted annual subscription revenue in our first quarter, which ended April 30th. Zuora also announced more than 100% quarter-over-quarter growth across all key performance dimensions. And that’s on top of 300-400% year-over-year growth for our last fiscal year.

But why is the $1 billion figure so significant? Think about it for a second. In one quarter, businesses just shifted $1 billion of revenue capture from traditional business models to what we at Zuora have been calling the Subscription Economy.

Just what is the Subscription Economy? Well, from SaaS to Cloud to Online Media to Mobile applications, we all know that the world is moving to a digital economy. But with that shift comes a change from a product-oriented mindset to a services-oriented mindset, and from a traditional product-centric business model to a subscription-based business model. That’s what we call the Subscription Economy.

Our $1 billion quarter represents a huge milestone on the road to the Subscription Economy. When we launched Zuora in the summer of 2008, no one else gave subscription billing much thought. But it was clear to us that—from ZipCar to NetFlix to the Google Apps to Chegg—the world was moving to a subscription model, and the need for subscription billing was poised to explode.

And when you’re in the right place at the right time with the right idea, it’s amazing what you can accomplish. First came salesforce.com. Marc Benioff and his team—of which I was an early member—saw that the world would inevitably shift to a software-as-a-service model. We introduced SaaS, and quickly grew beyond our startup roots to compete head-to-head with the giants of the CRM industry—and win.

Now it’s happening again. We set out to define and lead a new, world-class subscription billing industry, and that’s just what we’ve done. We’ve hired a world class team, with recent additions to such as President and GM Shawn Price, VP of Customer Operations Elizabeth Tse, and VP of Professional Services Steve Martello. We’ve expanded into new markets, like Telecom, and new regions, like Germany. We’ve delivered substantive updates to our product every month for 17 months in a row—a track record no SaaS vendor can match. We’ve achieved compliance with key standards like SAS70 Type II and PCI DSS. And we’ve maintained 99.99 percent uptime for five straight quarters.

And we’re far from done. With the industry’s rapid growth filling our sails, and as we continue to execute on our vision, the best is yet to come. Subscription billing isn’t just the wave of the future—it’s here today. And Zuora is now the company to beat.