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Figure 1From “The Rule of 40 is a trade-off, not a target”

Four ways to arrive at 40

The crossing lines make the trade-off visible: the score stays at 40 while the commercial posture changes.

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Figure 1Four ways to arrive at 40

A slope chart showing four illustrative ways to reach a combined Rule-of-40 score of 40 percent. Growth falls from 40 to 10 percent while margin rises from 0 to 30 percent across growth-heavy, growth-tilted, balanced, and margin-heavy cases. The combined score remains 40 percent in every case.GrowthMarginGrowth-heavy 40%0%Growth-tilted 30%10%Balanced 20%20%Margin-heavy 10%30%

Source: Author's illustrative worksheet. The examples use the common growth-plus-margin arithmetic and are not company benchmarks.

PNG4:3, 1600 × 1200, with the title, the source line and the attribution set in the image isoglu-2026-the-rule-of-40-is-a-trade-off-not-a-target-fig01.png

From the essay

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APA 7

Isoglu, S. (2026). Four ways to arrive at 40 [Figure]. isoglu.com. https://isoglu.com/insights/exhibits/isoglu-2026-the-rule-of-40-is-a-trade-off-not-a-target-fig01/

BibTeX
@misc{isoglu-2026-the-rule-of-40-is-a-trade-off-not-a-target-fig01,
  author = {Isoglu, Sinan},
  title = {{Four ways to arrive at 40}},
  year = {2026},
  howpublished = {Figure 1, isoglu.com},
  url = {https://isoglu.com/insights/exhibits/isoglu-2026-the-rule-of-40-is-a-trade-off-not-a-target-fig01/},
  note = {From the essay {The Rule of 40 is a trade-off, not a target}}
}
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