Thread by @jasonlk

I remember when I invested in Pipedrive, my first venture investment, in 2013 I Iooked at all the low-end, SMB CRM Solutions

It was hard to tell which one was “best” .. they all looked a bit like Trello, and all were pretty feature poor

Pipedrive was growing the fastest, though

Pipedrive was just acquired by Vista for $1.5B, so clearly being the early break-out lead in this large niche paid off

But ...

I just connected with one of The Others.

It’s 7.5 long years later

They are finally at $20m ARR, growing 80% now

So this other CRM, they aren’t worth $1.5B >today<

The most value went to the fastest growing player

But they hung in there for another 7.5 (!) years to get to $20m ARR and 80% growth

They’ll get to $100m+ in ARR if they keep going

You don’t always have to be #1 to win

So this other player, the venture return would be lower of course.

Instead of getting to a unicorn in 7 years from $1m ARR, like Pipedrive, it might take them 12-13, if you compound the math. Maybe even a little longer.

But I bet they get there.

An oldie here inspired by this investment, but it turned out to be true

There is room for many Unicorns in a big space

Many

saastr.com/the-simple-rea…

As a founder, you think your IRR matters

You think each year is so precious, that you have to get there in 2 year, 3 years, 5 years, 7 years

But if you are going long, your IRR doesn’t matter.

Your multiple does.

It’s OK if it takes longer. Not ideal, but OK.

And if you can just get to $10m ARR, growing 60% or more year-over-year

And yes, this is hard

But if you can just get there in 2 years, 4 years, even 6 years

Well, then the magic of compounding sets in ... if you have happy customers

$10m+ ARR
60%+ Growth
100%+ NRR
40+ NPS

That almost always gets you to $100m+ ARR

If your team is good enough, and sticks it out

More on the math here:

saastr.com/every-with-jus…