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Patrick Mathieson's avatar

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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OnlyCFO's avatar

Hopefully somewhat helpful now and helpful to the new crop of associates :)

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Thomas Robb's avatar

Great minds think alike 😉

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OnlyCFO's avatar

I wrote this last week and saw your class started a couple of days ago otherwise I would have told people to join that as well! People should check out your future benchmark classes too :)

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Thomas Robb's avatar

Appreciate it! I love the context you added on the COGS and G&A. Those comps are always messy even outside SaaS

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Matt Harney's avatar

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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OnlyCFO's avatar

100%- you need to slice the data in a way that most resembles your company's path. Which means that some benchmark reports are not for you. I remember seeing a16z's recent benchmart report with crazy high median growth, NDR, etc....that group of companies is a bad comparison for most

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Matt Harney's avatar

Having said that, the ICONIQ style benchmarks still deserve consideration.

Why? If your company is not achieving top quartile / top decile type metrics, you risk not being able to secure your next round of funding.

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Sep 14, 2023
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OnlyCFO's avatar

100% - Surprisingly many people kind of get this but still do it anyways...

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