You are missing at least four key factors:
- Growth rate.
- How “hot” the space is.
- How strong your leadership position is in the space.
- How capital efficient you are.
Trello was just acquired by Atlassian for $450,000,000. It probably had about your ARR ($20m), maybe a bit less.
But it was:
- Growing very quickly
- In a hot space, with insane daily-usage (1m DAU)
- With a #1 position in a segment of an important market; and
- Super-capital efficient so had lots of options.
That’s probably about as good as it’s going to get.
Work backwards to as low as 1–2x ARR from there. And if you aren’t growing at least 30–40% at $20m in ARR … I’d argue your valuation might almost be zero to most acquirers, and most VCs.
