Resources

ICONIQ's annual State of SaaS report. Best for benchmarking against top-tier, well-funded growth-stage companies; the portfolio is elite, so treat it as a ceiling, not a median.

ICONIQ's interactive companion to the State of SaaS report. Use this over the static report when you want to filter by ARR range and growth rate down to a genuinely comparable peer set.

Took over OpenView's annual SaaS benchmarks report: NRR, GRR, CAC payback, and the usual suspects. Best for a broad general read on private SaaS metrics, not a narrow or niche cut of the data.

Ray Rike's interactive benchmarking tool, with better segmentation than most. Best when you want tight control over your comparison set, benchmarking against companies actually built like yours, not a generic cohort.

Startup benchmarking hub built for early-stage SaaS, with Jason Lemkin's take on what 'good' looks like. Best for founders benchmarking pre-scale; later-stage companies will outgrow it fast.

Covers both private and public SaaS benchmarks across Rule of 40, unit economics, and operating metrics. Best when you want one source spanning both, instead of stitching together separate private and public reports.

State of the Cloud and the Good-Better-Best SaaS metrics framework. Best as a shared reference point: it's the framework most other benchmarking sources and investors already measure against.

Jamin Ball's weekly newsletter on public SaaS benchmarks and market trends. Best for staying current on public market sentiment week to week, not for a one-time lookup.

Interactive public cloud benchmarks updated in real time: growth, efficiency, and valuation multiples. Best when you need today's actual trading multiples, not a static periodic report.

Public SaaS comps and operating metrics with filters by category and scale. Best for a quick, self-serve public comps lookup, not a narrative writeup.

Real, anonymized metrics (MRR growth, churn, ARPU, LTV) aggregated from thousands of Baremetrics-tracked subscription businesses, not a survey. Best for SMB-stage benchmarks specifically; it skews smaller than most other sources here.

Holloway. A comprehensive guide to stock options, RSUs, and equity mechanics for founders and employees.

Holloway (Andy Sparks). A fundraising handbook covering VC basics, term sheets, investor outreach, and negotiation.

Holloway. A practical guide to building and managing distributed teams.

Pete Kazanjy. The early-stage go-to-market handbook for founders and first-time sales hires figuring out B2B sales from scratch.

Holloway. Principles for clear thinking and confident writing, aimed at founders.

Andrew Warner. A guide to hosting better interviews, from a podcast host with 2,000+ episodes—useful well beyond podcasting (customer interviews, hiring, board updates).

Brad Feld & Jason Mendelson. The standard reference for understanding VC term sheets and how venture deals actually work, from an investor and a deal lawyer.

Rick Rubin. A meditation on creativity and the creative process—not business-specific, but shapes how I think about the work.

Phyl Terry. A peer-support approach to job searching: building a "search council," clarifying what you actually want, and negotiating with confidence.

Patrick Lencioni. Makes the case that organizational health, not strategy or finance, is the biggest competitive advantage most companies leave on the table.

Startup Boards outlines strategies for transforming boards of directors from compliance obligations into strategic assets for entrepreneurs. The book offers practical guidance on optimizing composition, managing effective meetings, and aligning founders with investors to accelerate growth.