As 2021 kicked off, I reformulated a series of posts we published last year focused on startups that had reached the $100 million ARR (annual recurring revenue) mark. In our refreshed effort, we cut the target in half and dug up companies around the $50 million ARR threshold. The goal was to figure out what those firms were going through as they reached material scale, not after they had achieved effective pre-IPO status.
And the results were a bit medium.
While it was fun to chat with OwnBackup, Assembly, SimpleNexus and PicsArt, ultimately we were getting similar notes from each company: hiring is …