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One of the most common “asks” VCs get from founders is help benchmarking growth metrics and setting goals for future fundraises. Founders we’re meeting for the first time will often ask what revenue we look for when writing a seed check. And founders we’ve already invested in will usually come to us for a heads-up on what CAC, revenue or other key growth metrics future Series A investors will expect.
While every founder needs to be able to assess and benchmark their own company against peers to set internal goals and fundraise, not every founder has access to a seasoned investor that can offer a 30,000-foot context on their specific market and go-to-market motion.
In an effort to level the playing field for founders who may not otherwise have access to insider growth knowledge, our firm, Basis Set Ventures, is partnering with Crunchbase to produce a comprehensive report on early-stage startup go-to-market benchmarks.
The state of go-to-market report
Proper benchmarking can make or break a company in the early days, so we’re digging deep to understand how fundamentals like team composition, pilot/beta group structures, and development timelines can impact growth.
The data we’re collecting now is part of our larger effort to democratize growth through the Hypergrowth Network by giving founders access to the strongest data, mentorship and custom-built tools.
When we’re done collecting data, we’ll anonymize and aggregate the results to publish a report on the State of Go-to-Market — similar to a report we published last year on key traits leading to founder success. And for those who opt-in, we’ll share an even more comprehensive, personalized report that benchmarks your results against those of similar companies that completed the survey.
If you’d like to be a part of making growth benchmarks more accessible to founders, please fill out the survey here.
Findings thus far
Best practices for growth can end up wildly different for every go-to-market motion and stage of a company. So, while crafting The State of Go-To-Market Report, we’re being intentional about collecting data across stages and across company types including top-down enterprise sales, self-service and open source.
Although we’re still collecting data, we’ve already identified that among the earliest-stage companies, engineering-heavy teams often outperform their sales-heavy counterparts. The best early-stage companies simply do more with less. Moving beyond this limited sample size, this report will be able to speak to the early hires that best augment different types of companies at different stages of maturity — and much more.
Simply fill out this survey to participate in this research and help make growth benchmarks more accessible to founders.
John Mannes is an investor at Basis Set Ventures, an early-stage venture firm investing in companies that transform the way people work.
