Over the last few years, LTV / CAC has become the gold standard metric to determine the growth and profitability potential of a direct-to-consumer business. Somewhere along the way, the concept of CAC payback got lost, but it has huge implications on a company’s ability to scale efficiently. In today’s…

One of the most important concepts for startup leadership teams to understand is the phenomenon of S-curves. An S-curve such as the one illustrated below represents the natural rhythm of growth, which follows a pattern of discovery, inflection, scaling, and inevitably decay. This pattern is found in many contexts…

Be Fully Prepared for Your Company’s Next Fundraise This post was jointly written with Michael Miao. The original post can be found here: https://www.ivp.com/saas-fundraising-handbook/ INTRODUCTION SaaS companies are characterized as having the perfect business model because of both the recurring and compounding nature of their revenue streams. Relative to other businesses…

Follow me on Twitter for my thoughts on startups and venture capital. In 2019, the average person in the US spent over $640 on digital subscription apps. The proliferation of the subscription model comes from its key benefits, which include a predictable, recurring revenue stream and stronger relationships with users…

Follow me on Twitter for my thoughts on startups and venture capital. As COVID-19 continues to spread, Zoom has emerged as the leading tool to help enterprises and schools continue to operate during the crisis. According to data from App Annie, over the weekend, Zoom eclipsed 500K daily downloads, a…

Follow me on Twitter for my thoughts on startups and venture capital. I’ve written posts in the past aimed at helping founders benchmark their revenue growth and sales efficiency. This new post is focused on helping benchmark SaaS operating expenses (S&M, G&A, R&D) in more detail. Are your expenses in-line…

Congrats to Brex on announcing a $100M investment led by Kleiner Perkins Digital Growth Fund. Read more about the financing here. In IVP’s Hyper-Growth Podcast series, IVP investors talk with CEOs from the fastest-growing companies to understand the ins-and-outs of company-building in the hyper-growth environment. In our sixth episode, I…

Follow me on Twitter for my thoughts on startups and venture capital. I recently published a post on revenue growth benchmarking for startups. The data is helpful to benchmark whether your company is growing fast enough to be on the path to IPO. The data on its own, however, ignores…

In 2017 I published a post summarizing the key learnings from Jeff Bezos after reading each of his annual shareholder letters. Key themes on the company’s philosophy include a focus on the customer, long-term thinking, and constantly raising the bar. Earlier today, Bezos released his 22nd annual letter. In this…