10 Comments

This is the kind of material that would have been amazing if it existed in my early days as a venture associate. Thank you.

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Averages = STAY AWAY

Little to no company profile/attribute context = STAY AWAY

Any single metric and the associated benchmark (even if relevant, context based and statistically valid) in isolation is a mistake - especially if it is a compound metric...not all Rules of 40 > 40 are equal!!!

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Great minds think alike 😉

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I recommend paying attention to the *caliber* of companies included in the benchmarking study.

For example, the ICONIQ benchmarks are composed solely of best in class type companies. Some in the 2023 sample: Calendly, Drata, Atlassian, Hubspot, Monday, Snowflake, Datadog.

For *most* founders (definitionally, the universe of $1-$5m ARR companies >>> IPO scale companies), focus on the "real world" benchmarks (like ChartMogul with an n > 2,000 and lower average ARR included).

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