Shen: Startups Over $5M–$10M ARR Should Prioritize CAC Payback Over Burn Multiples
Christina Shen · Increasing Runway Without Sacrificing Growth with Norwest Venture Partners and Andreessen Horowitz · Nov 3, 2022 · at 5:58
Christina Shen, General Partner at Andreessen Horowitz, outlines why late-stage SaaS startups should prefer CAC payback over burn multiples to avoid penalizing R&D investments.
0:00 / 0:15exact quote · 15.0s
▶ Watch the full episode on YouTube → 720p mp4 · rendered on demand · StarZero watermark
“My big recommendation is for later stage companies, particularly if you're five, if not ten million AR and higher, to definitely start measuring your business by a CAC payback, because it's a true measure of new revenue that you're generating from your sales and marketing engine and how efficient your business is.”
quote is from the automated transcript, cleaned for reading: filler sounds and stutters are removed, nothing is rephrased. names can be misheard (the analysis reads context, assessments check outside sources). how →
More from Christina Shen
Shen: Growth-adjusted private SaaS valuations remain reasonable relative to public markets
“That means in the last two years, despite seemingly high private company valuations it actually shows on a growth-adjusted basis, private valuations have actually been fairly reasonable.”
Shen: The 70-50-30 efficiency rule for scaling SaaS companies
“The BVP efficiency rule says if you're greater than thirty million in revenue, you just have to remember three numbers. 70, 50, 30. And that's because when you're expansion stage company and you're, call it 30 to sixty million in ARR, 40 is actually too low of…”
Shen: Cloud software investment quadrupled in six years, taking 50% of VC
“If you look at what's been invested in cloud software, it has literally quadrupled in a six year time period and represents about 50% of total venture capital funding”
Shen: Early-stage private SaaS growth accelerated from 170% to 250% by 2018
“In 2011, they were growing on average of a 170%. These are companies that are between one and twenty million ARR. Today, they're growing about 250%.”
Shen: Top SaaS companies scale from $1M to $10M in two years
“If you are a good company, you got from one to ten million in AR in just four years. That means you did a little better than a double, double, double, double, and you're on the same growth trajectories as companies like Cornerstone and Mindbody. If you're in t…”
Shen: CAC payback benchmarks for SMB, mid-market, and enterprise SaaS
“If you are a mid-market company, 12 month probably is your right number. But if you're selling to enterprise and you've got hundred K ACV deals, you're driving great upsell, you should think of everything as an LTV to CAC ratio. So if you've got a higher LTV, …”