Why SaaS Founders Sell with Kevin, CEO and co-founder @ SureSwift.com - Escape Velocity Show #33

About this video

In this Escape Velocity interview, Kevin, CEO and co-founder of SureSwift Capital, explains why SaaS founders sell and how SureSwift buys. He says SureSwift bought 34 companies in four years, starting with pooled capital from himself and a co-founder, later adding three partners at 20% each and bank acquisition financing within agreed guardrails. Its prototypical target is a bootstrapped B2B SaaS business, usually a founder-developer with three to five contractors, at $25k to $100k MRR, valued in his opinion at around four times trailing-12-month seller’s discretionary earnings, with margins sometimes as high as 70%. Founders sell for many non-price reasons — marriage, divorce, children, a house, another project, anxiety about concentration risk, or not wanting to manage a team — so he warns against calling sellers foolish. Standard terms involve escrow/holdbacks and a six-month transition: the founder keeps running it for three months while SureSwift watches, then is replaced function by function. Deals come via brokers, who value execution certainty, and direct outreach. Post-close, SureSwift applies checklists for SEO, tech and pricing, tests paid traffic, polls customers, and prefers announcing an acquisition four to five months later with proof of improvements. Examples include MailParser and Docparser from Moritz, and FeedbackPanda for ESL teachers. The strategy is buy and hold, informed by Robert Smith’s ‘software tastes like chicken’ idea, and Kevin’s own shift to hiring smart people, making his job small and staying out of the way.

Key takeaways

• SureSwift targets bootstrapped B2B SaaS at $25k-$100k MRR, typically valued around 4x trailing-12-month SDE
• Founders sell for life and happiness reasons far more than price alone — de-risking, new projects, or not wanting to be ’the man’
• Extracting yourself from day-to-day operations before selling improves terms; expect escrow/holdbacks and a six-month transition
• SureSwift’s playbook starts with HR, finance and tech headaches, plus checklists for pricing, SEO, paid traffic and regular customer polling
• The model is buy and hold with team vetoes in diligence, retaining the acquired team on the same deal and investing more in better-performing businesses

Episode details: published July 30, 2020 · 44:41 long. Summary written by Self Growth Videos from the episode itself. Business results and any income figures mentioned are Dan Martell’s own claims, shared for education — they are not typical or guaranteed.

← Previous: How To Plan a Team Offsite That Strengthens Your Company · Next: Top 5 Activities of a Great SaaS Customer Success Manager →

All Dan Martell videos · Dan Martell profile · Dan Martell (official site)