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!!!
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).
Death From Benchmarking
This is the kind of material that would have been amazing if it existed in my early days as a venture associate. Thank you.
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!!!
Great minds think alike 😉
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).