Growth Is Dead. Long Live Efficiency. SAN FRANCISCO - The market has spoken. Public SaaS companies with Rule of 40 scores above 40 trade at 12-15x revenue. Those below 20? 4-6x. The premium for balance has never been larger. This isn't a cyclical correction. It's a structural repricing. The ZIRP era created founders who believed growth excused every sin - negative gross margins, infinite payback periods, burn multiples that would make a casino blush. That era is over. Why it matters: If you're still pitching "growth at all costs" to investors, you're going to get rejected. The founders who understand the new efficiency playbook are raising faster, recruiting better, and acquiring competitors who didn't adapt. ==chart Metric
| Target | Top Quartile | Bottom Quartile Net Revenue Retention (NRR) | >120% | 128% avg | 92% avg Gross Margin | >75% | 79% avg |
