[lpolovets]

For me, the key question is: "how fast is the company growing once they figure out product/market fit?" Some companies find product/market fit immediately while others might need 2-4 years. The amount of time is partly related to skill, but partly related to luck, the complexity of the problem being solved, etc. So I don't judge too much on how long it takes to get to PMF.

But once someone has PMF, the question shifts to: "How quickly can the business grow and how large can it get?" The goal for most earlier stage VCs is to find companies that can scale to $100m+ in annual revenue in less than 10 years. If a company is at $500k ARR and tripling, then you can draw a path to it hitting $100m ARR eventually (e.g. triple annually three times, then double annually three times). But if the company is growing at 30% or 50% per year at $500k ARR, then it's nearly impossible to make a path to $100m+ ARR. It would take a company at $500k ARR and 40% annual growth over 15 years to hit $100m ARR.

To address the question of expectations in different industries: I'm always thinking about the path to $100m ARR. If an industry take a while to break into but then revenue can ramp up more quickly, that's okay. But the path needs to be there and work on the time scale of a venture fund (~10 years).