Time to Unicorn Status, Predictors of SaaS Growth, Pricing Playbooks, GTM Motions & More
Digesting Insights From the Data
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Predictors of SaaS Growth: CAC Payback Period & NDR
The one and only
from explores in a recent post how combining CAC payback period with net dollar retention (NDR) offers strong insights into SaaS growth efficiency:Top performers: Companies with high NDR (100%+) and a low CAC payback period (<18 months) show a median growth of 65% YoY and a Rule of 40 at 45%.
Enterprise focus: High NDR but a longer CAC payback period (18+ months) yields 35% YoY growth, but the Rule of 40 drops to 5%.
PLG model: Low NDR and a short CAC payback period correlate with 25% YoY growth and a Rule of 40 at 35%.
✈️ KEY TAKEAWAYS
Pairing NDR and CAC helps identify growth efficiency, especially across different business models like PLG and enterprise SaaS.
Time to Unicorn Status Varies Widely
A recent Stanford study finds that while the median time for a startup to achieve unicorn status is 7 years, the journey varies greatly across companies.
Speedsters: Altos Labs became a unicorn in less than a year, one of the fastest ever.
Slow and steady: Companies like Quizlet and Cytek took 15 and 28 years, respectively, to reach the $1 billion valuation.
Majority range: 75% of unicorns reached this status within 9 years of founding, but outliers remain.
✈️ KEY TAKEAWAYS
The path to unicorn status is highly individualized, with both rapid ascents and long hauls proving successful. A good estimate seems to be just below a decade.
Pricing Transparency in SaaS: Rare but Insightful
An analysis by Oren Greenberg of 37,412 SaaS websites uncovered that pricing transparency is not the norm, with only 20.9% displaying prices and discount and a mere 5.5% offering free trials. This number has been steadily trending downwards for the past years.