[Private Equity Series] Acquiring Bootstrapped SaaS Companies with Kevin McArdle of SureSwift Capital

Kevin McArdle is the Founder and CEO of SureSwift Capital, a private equity firm that buys and builds SaaS companies. SureSwift gives dream exits to SaaS Founders and through their uniquely entrepreneurial approach, they have acquired–and grown–over 30 companies in five and a half years. A few of their companies include ChargeStripe, Mailparser, MySiteAuditor, and many more.

Before founding SureSwift, Kevin worked at Cerner Corporation, a global healthcare IT firm. In his 15 year tenure at Cerner, Kevin held positions in sales, sales leadership, operations, general management, and client management, eventually becoming one of the youngest Vice Presidents in the company’s 35-year history.

 

Here’s a glimpse of what you’ll learn:

• Kevin McArdle shares how he transitioned from the corporate world into private equity and how this led to the founding of SureSwift Capital
• Kevin talks about two of his favorite bootstrap companies, Wildbit and Balsamiq, and why they stand out for him
• Why did  Kevin decide to focus on bootstrapped SaaS companies?
• What are the requirements that bootstrap company founders need to fulfill in order to qualify for SureSwift’s dream exit?
• Kevin explains why people sell their SaaS companies
• The early mistakes Kevin made in the process of building SureSwift Capital and why he believes that having a good team makes all the difference
• The key hires that helped grow SureSwift Capital
• People that have influenced Kevin through his SureSwift journey
• Kevin discusses the SaaS company buying process using the Mailparser case study as an example

In this episode…

Are you a bootstrapped SaaS founder working hard and looking forward to your dream exit? Kevin McArdle’s SureSwift Capital is on the lookout for companies like yours—but there’s a catch: your company needs to be a good fit for his company in order for him to help you get your dream exit.

But what are the requirements that you need to meet in order to qualify for SureSwift’s dream exit? And what if, instead of selling your company, you want it to grow even more?

On this episode of the Inspired Insider Podcast as Dr. Jeremy Weisz goes behind the scenes of private equity firm, SureSwift Capital, with its founder, Kevin McArdle. They talk about Kevin’s foray into entrepreneurship and how he grew his company, the idea behind SureSwift Capital’s interest in bootstrapped SaaS companies, the acquisition process that companies go through, and the requirements for them to help companies get the exit that they dream of. Stay tuned.

Resources Mentioned in this episode

• SureSwift Capital, Inc
• Kevin McArdle on LinkedIn

Special Mentions:

• Marcel Petitpas of Parakeeto on LinkedIn
• Wildbit
• Balsamiq
• Brent Beshore of Permanent Equity on LinkedIn
• Mailparser
• Docparser
• Storemapper
• Workbase
• MySiteAuditor

Related Episodes

• Wistia: Should you act like a big company or be honest with your customers when you are still small? with Chris Savage [Big Lessons Big Mistakes]
• Automation Solutions with Wade Foster Founder of Zapier
• Pipedrive: Brain Surgery, Married, & Moved Company from Estonia to the U.S. All at Once – with Urmas Purde [Inspiration]
• Marketing Tips and Insights from Eugene Levin Chief Strategy and Corporate Development Officer at SEMrush
• SoftwareByRob: Lessons Learned as a Serial Entrepreneur -with Rob Walling [Big Lessons]

 

Episode Transcript

Jeremy Weisz

Dr. Jeremy Weisz here, Founder of InspiredInsider.com where I talk with inspirational entrepreneurs and leaders. And you know Kevin was having you today and I’ll introduce you properly in a second. I was thinking of other SaaS companies that are interesting that I’ve had on and in a second, I’m going to ask Kevin, about his favorite bootstrap SaaS companies, but some of the past ones I’ve had on the podcast are Pipedrive. Pipedrive was a really interesting story and they’ve grown I think, when I interviewed them, they had like 10,000 customers now I think they over 100,000 or something. Wistia Zapier was an interesting story on how Wade grew Zapier acuity scheduling, Gavin is a checkout enter, he is a master at conversions he like just tested everything from the site. And from onboarding he found out there were some certain parts from a SaaS company parts where people dropped off and he just zoned in on that, that churn and then basically put things in place to get people past that point, and he was a master at it. And SEMrush, also, and many more. So check out other episodes before I introduce Kevin, this episode is brought to you by Rise25. At Rise25 we help businesses give to and connect to their dream 100 relationships by helping you run your podcast. So we are the easy button for businesses to launch and run your podcast. And you know, Kevin, for me, relationships are the number one thing in my life. I’m always looking at ways to give to my best relationships. And I’ve been doing that for over 10 years and profiling. The people that I admire. I love what they’re doing sharing their thought leadership with the world on my podcast. So if you have thought about anyone and thought about starting a podcast or you want strategy or on your podcast, you can contact us go to Rise25.com I am excited to introduce today’s guest. Big shout out to Marcel Petitpas, Co-founder of Parakeeto. He helps digital agencies run more profitably. He introduced me to today’s guest, Kevin. Thank you, Marcel. He’s awesome. Just a great individual. And Kevin McArdle is the founder and CEO of SureSwift Capital, which is a private equity firm that buys in builds SaaS companies, and they have bought over 30 companies in the past five and a half years. I love your tagline, Kevin SureSwift gives dream exits to SaaS founders. Hey, that cuts through everything.

Kevin McArdle

Right? Yeah, we like to keep it pretty simple.

Jeremy Weisz

I love it. You know, they’ve cut the frustration and confusion out of the purchase process. And a few other companies include ChargeStripe, Mailparser, MySiteAuditor and many more, you could check out their website, you know? SureSwift Capital. Prior to founding SureSwift. Kevin was Vice President at Cerner Corporation, which is a global healthcare IT firm for 15 years. And it looks like you probably held every possible almost every possible position in that company. I didn’t see gender on there. But sales, leadership operations, general management, it looks like you just acquired all these skill sets, like what can I do with this? And you started SureSwiftCapital.com. So Kevin, thanks for joining me.

Kevin McArdle

Oh, thank you very much. Thank you for that very detailed and thorough introduction. I can’t write any code. So that’s at the top of jobs. I’ve never held it Cerner and or North Shore. So

Jeremy Weisz

I want to hear you know, I asked you, I said in the beginning your favorite bootstrap companies, before you answer that, though, tell me the transition, your point of decision of, obviously, you were at that company for 15 years, it was a big part of your life, your decision to leave there and what you’re going to do next?

Kevin McArdle

Well, I’ll try to give you a succinct version of that story. But as you can imagine, it was a big decision. And it it was really over the course of about a year, the thinking about different things and deciding and there were two sort of key factors in that decision. The first one was I had other opportunities presented to me. And, you know, one, you know, there was a physician who was a friend of mine who wanted to create a medical device company. And he thought, you know, his expertise compared with my business sense would be a good combination. And we actually went down a path of exploring, like, would that make sense for both of us, it really started, I’d always dreamed about owning my own business, but that really got the wheels turning in earnest about like, is now the right time. Is this the right opportunity? Am I ready and that sort of thing. At the same time, a competitor to Cerner was, you know, lurring needs You know, try to change teams and go work for them. So that, again started me thinking like, Okay, well, there’s a reason why I can’t go do something else. And then the The third thing was, well, I started along with those, like other opportunities, you know, the idea of SureSwift was presented to me as another way to start a business and, you know, do my own thing. So all these things were kind of, you know, in my head all at once and, you know, creating a little bit of pressure to make a decision to either double down on Cerner or do one of these other three options. And then