This is going to be a really fun interview. Adam. Will you tell us who you are and what you do? Yeah absolutely thanks for having me Todd. Of course my name is Adam C. I am one of the co-founders and the chief marketing officer of a company called Yorkie uh. We are a strategic growth and investment firm, which uh really just means that we try to help technology companies grow. We do that through two different ways. One is on the investment side of uh, where we invest in early stage.
B2B software recurring Revenue companies uh, and then we have an advisory Services side of the business where we help companies with both strategy and operational execution in finance, product marketing and sales love it and so primarily you’re dealing with SAS companies right and the technology with monthly Recurring, that’s kind of another way for saying SAS right or is it? Is it different? Okay? Okay?
So so, as you jump into the SAS World, obviously there’s a lot of players here and there’s a lot of people that need to hear this interview, I’m guessing because it’s it there’s a lot of ways to screw it up, and so everyone thinks that jumping into A recurring Revenue model is easy. Tell us what you see, what are, as you are, trying to um well, first of all tell us why. Why are you into this Marketplace?
Have you had something like this before personally, or what kind of drove you into this uh, this advisory, this type Ty advisory, yeah, absolutely so uh prior to um, starting York, IE uh, I worked with my two partners at a company called dine, which did the domain Name system, so very deep technical infrastructure, um and we really uh were – were sort of the go to Market side of that business that we were able to grow to about a 100 million annual recurring revenue and washed by Oracle.
Nice and as we reflected back on that growth Journey uh, and we looked at all of the different sort of um Legacy institutions that we turn to help, whether that was our VC, whether that was our vendors, whether that was our advisers, we kind of felt like They were operating out of antiquated models, uh right that were beneficial to them, but not necessarily to us as The Operators right, and so we wanted to disrupt that, and so that was the Genesis for launching York IE, because to your point, B2B software is very Competitive, but it’s also still at its infancy right and so I think, a lot of opportunity for companies to continue to grow, but uh continue to grow.
One of the things that we’ve always advocated, for which is, I think, because we’re based in New Hampshire, is uh – is strategic, efficient growth, not necessarily growth at all costs nice, nice.
That’s a Viewpoint. We’ve been trying to bring to the market. I think that’s a good. I think that’s a good Viewpoint to bring to the market, I think there’s a lot of people that just grow to grow and sometimes you’re like what are you doing playing in this in this uh part of the niche? You know what I mean. It’s kind of goofy simp s, so absolutely now you were very casual in saying that you reached 100 million in recurring annual revenue.
That is no small feat. Congratulations by the way it’s awesome, yeah, thank you and for those of you listening who are trying to build a recurring monthly Revenue model. There are a lot of things to consider in building. You know, there’s so many different facets of of SAS and there’s. So many different ways to hit this Adam when you’re evaluating opportunities for your investment site or your advisory. What are some red flags? You see, I mean there’s. Obviously, things people do wrong and everyone thinks that everything goes right in SAS.
What are some red flags that you see that you’re like yeah, this probably isn’t going to work for us, I mean, I think, one of the things that you see a lot of ums is sort of like a product out approach. Okay, right, like a lot of times like especially for new companies, you’ll, have some sort of a Founder. That’s a subject matter expert in a field and had a problem, so they solved it so now they assume everybody else, wants it as well too got and what we always advocate for is a market in approach right, which is like okay, great, like that’s awesome.
What you know your product, but how does your product play in the broader competitive landscape? Because right successful companies have not just featured for features sake, but they have featured that people want and they are. They are rising as the market is expanding um and I think, taking that kind of in approach and as early as possible will help influence sort of everything that you build. Uh for your. So, are you talking more about just really paying attention to what your competitors are doing or paying more attention to what your current subscribers are saying?
They want, I think, the combination of all of those things I think you’re right too I just I was wondering I don’t. I don’t look at as many use cases as you do, so I’m really, I’m really actually very curious about this, because so many people out there, especially Developers, are trying to create something. That’s going to build that monthly recurring. Everyone wants monthly, recurring or annual recurring, and so as you’re looking at that and trying to build that what are some of the big green lights, I mean you probably look out on the landscape of the opportunities that you see and you’re like dude.
I wish I had a piece of that one you know well, are there? Are there things and opportunities you see that that uh that are really just like you know, they’re going to work. I think what I, what I am, and the company is really big into – is like at this moment like a vertical SAS that has horizontal applications.
Okay, because like to our point about the pragmatic growth right, like you know, the old Silicon Valley model is like a home run or I strike out right, I’m much more of like a Moneyball approach. Right like hey, can you manufacture a double and then, like? Hey, if that’s where you end up like you know, if you have a a platform that uh and kind of attacking say like the The Pest Management space um and you become a really big player in The Pest Management space. Uh, that’s a win. But then maybe you unlock some other verticals as well, and then you become that home run, but at the least You’ hit that double right, and I think, like one of the things to your thing about red flags, is like Founders.
Have this Vision, this Grand Vision, which is awesome but like what are everybody? Wants it yeah. What’s the tangible steps to get there yeah right and that’s what I like that the unlock additional opportunity as you go along, I like it, I like it now Adam one of the things that makes you unique in term from an investment standpoint is that you Do have this advisory side to you. You know. I think that a lot of people out there listening who are attempting to raise their initial seed rounds or maybe you’re in an A or B round a lot of people. They look for the wrong things.
They don’t really know what this this investor is looking at when they’re looking at their financials looking at their numbers looking at their product even and you have the unique advantage of being able to come in and not only offer the funds that they need, but Also the advisory piece: how important is it for people to be looking for a strategic money as opposed to just any money to help fund their business yeah? I mean, I think, that’s like going back to the to the point you made about like having just seen.
Companies like raising a bunch of capital, it’s like you, have to understand, uh that you know what I mean that is like you are selling a piece of your company when you raise money and yeah, just as just as you are so thoughtful uh in who you Co-Found it with and who you bring in as a leadership team. The same should be said about who you bring in as an investor right and not all money is created equal, and so you want to find a partner who’s, bringing some additional value and also viewing the opportunity in the same way that you do, because when there’s Misaligned expectations and misaligned incent.
It really takes the joy out of the startup Journey, which is going to be hard even on its best day and like loses sort of the whole point of it. If it’s just not a great experience now I know that in talking with a lot of other, you know, different Industries have different exit strategies right um.
You know there’s a lot of service providers who really don’t see an exit until it’s time to retire, and they just want to exit to maybe family or pass it on. You know through that kind of exit strategy, which is a strategy, but when it comes to SAS, there’s tends to be this. Mindset of all I got to do is hit this Revenue number and then I should get this multiple. What else is there to it?
Because a lot of guys, you know they tend to think that they overstimulate what their perceived valuation of the company is. How do you look at valuation? You know a lot of these guys are just kind of bloated in their own heads yeah.
I mean, I think last couple of years in Tech have been a reckoning of that uh, false valuations, as it turns out that, like a three million revenue, company is not worth a is not valued at two billion dollars, surprising everybody um, but that’s Where again, I think it’s about you know.
I have always believed good companies have good options and if you take that look at the beginning – and you take that market in approach – and you have a full understanding of what kind of company you’re trying to build and then you go about build it in a Responsible manner, you have a lot of options right. My co-founder and my longtime friend Kyle York, his most retweeted tweet is saying.
Like you know, in the tech industry we have to celebrate a $ 25 million exit because that’s still right for the founder and the founder that game changer, yeah exactly right but like in the tech crunch world and you know the Sequoia world, like those Are like scoffed at really. I know crazy right. It’S crazy! There’s a lot more of a universe, uh of potential opportunities for that than the uh you know3 billion uh exits just a few seconds to let you know about a project that we’ve been putting together for the last several months and we’re finally launching it called the Captain’s Council, you see as a CEO or operator of a business, it can feel like you get stuck in your own head, a lot of the time you get challenges that you don’t know how to resolve.
You get people causing problems in your leadership team that you don’t know how to resolve, and it’s so hard to overcome those things by yourself. You don’t have to anymore join the Captain’s Council. Captain’s Council is a group of other CEOs and operators and owners of businesses where we come together once a month for several hours to discuss the biggest challenges, you’re facing you express to the council 8 to 10 people about what’s going on. Where do you feel stuck, and these other people are in the same boat as you, they’re running and operating their own businesses they’re your peers?
They help you kind of dissect what’s happening and help. You see things that you may not have seen all by yourself. If you don’t have a good strong network of people around, you come join the Captain’s Council. This is going to be something that will change the way. You run your business and open your eyes to opportunities that you have never seen without the help of your peer group. Come check it out.
Captain council.com, you know which, which leads to another question. You know that there are not all founders created equal. I think you’d agree with me there um and, as you think, about Founders in Tech, some people are clearly very, very Advanced and Technical in terms of their ability to visualize a platform that can solve a lot of really cool problems and then there’s others that are Just really good at being the face of the company and and the Visionary and and kind of guiding it that way. As you look at both types of leaders in these SAS companies, you know clearly, there just are points where certain people are meant to exit.
Sooner than others, where do you see that difference in in those two different personality types that we just talked about yeah?
It’s interesting and I think that that that realization, that not every company and not every stage is right for every person is a very liberating right thing right and that’s where, like I love working with second time entrepreneurs, because they kind of understand that a little Bit a first-time entrepreneur, even myself, as a first-time co-founder right, like it’s very easy to fall into the um. Oh, I must be doing something wrong, because this part of what used to be my kingdom is now moving to somebody else, and the reality is You’ actually done something right, like a lot of times.
In those early days like um, you have kind of two jobs because there’s not enough, you know, and then it’s like well, if you’ve done your job, two or 10 yeah right, yeah, yeah, exactly right, um, and so you know what I mean, and I think That, like you know, I talked with a performance coach once and she said you know. Most companies fail not because of external factors, but because of internal factors, agree right and I think just having that self-awareness um can be the difference for different Founders on their on the different stops on their journey love. It loves it now.
Let’s take a step back now that we know kind of who you’re trying to help how you help them the problems you’re trying to solve. Let’s talk a little bit about your business, I mean you guys have been doing this now for how long, so we founded the company uh in September of 2019, so we’re going on four years. Oh just right before right as people were starting to get that that cold right, it was very yeah thought, and it’s funny that you say that, because we thought like okay, we wanted to have this sort of Hands-On investment approach, so we thought very biased to the Northeast being in New Hampshire and then then the world shut down um and it didn’t matter if you were in the town next to me or if you were in Utah right um, which really expanded our model and opportunity.
Because I truly believe there are great entrepreneurs everywhere, and I really do think that we are entering into the sort of phase where, like you know, the Silicon valleys of the world and the Austin and the New Yorks that they aren’t goon na. Have that strangle. Hold – and I I agree with you yeah, you know, and it’s smart, I agree with you and that’s a fun opportunity to try to go and look and find those uh, those Founders doing cool things. I love it. I love it.
You know I agree with you in a lot of ways and I’m glad that you had a positive effect from covid, because it does it did. It did really really launch people out of their own Comfort zones in a lot of ways and um. So so, as you started to like, you know, build this model which came first, the advisory or the investment. What kind of LED, which came?
First, in your little puzzle, there uh the investment side came first because, as it turns out easier, it’s easier to give money uh than to ask and then right what we did was we kind of piloted that Hands-On uh execution with the companies that we were investing In and then we found that there was real product Market fit and there was that real need um at that sort of C early CA, and then we were able to then go and say: okay great now, let’s go take that to more companies, and then I love it as a result. That’s continued to grow and um and be, but you knew from the start that companies you wanted to invest in. You wanted to help guide and Coach is.
That is that right? You wanted to strategically kind of align with companies that you knew how to expand and grow. Is that right to your to your point about what kind of capital did we want to be right? Like yeah, I a lot of traditional VCSS are more money managers um, who think that companies are built in spreadsheets, whereas I think we realize that companies are built by human beings, and we want to get involved with those human beings and help them. You know chase their dreams. I love that.
You say that because I have, I am a self-proclaimed Master at playing spreadsheet, billionaire and um, and it does definitely take a real executioner, though, to really take the model and put it into action. And I think to your point: it’s a beautiful thing that you’re doing you know you’re, really kind of helping them understand the spreadsheet that they’ve put together to pitch you with and now say, okay to really execute on this. You don’t just need the money you need X, Y and Z. Also, how do you fulfill that with these guys yeah?
So, we’ve built a very large like a very strong um, uh Team, so across those services that I talked about, we have over about 120 employees. Love – and I always joke with my co-founders that we had to start the company because right now we’re not even qualified for an internship, because we’ve been able to attract such talented folks um, because I think they believe in our in our vision of you know really Helping reshape the way startups are built, scaled and monetized. I love it.
I love it and, as you as you jump in um, you know after Investments have been made and you really jump into to more of the advisory and plugging people in what does that? Look? Like are you? Are you replacing people? Are you just supplementing like? Are you coaching training? What are the typical problems?
You’re, seeing on initial early stage, guys yeah, absolutely and just to clarify the point too, like we’re doing these advisory services for both the companies that we invest in and just companies in general? What we’re seeing is like a lot of companies will come to us with a point solution like hey. We just had the seed funding, we want to do an announcement and we want to start building our brand um yeah. In that case, we’ll come in. We have like a basically like your Swiss army knife of a marketing team. We can either directly Co.
You know work with the co-founder or potentially maybe you have a a more Junior marketing resource that you want to right, and so that’s those are the problems we’re seeing hey. We got some funding uh, we need to accelerate the product, we need some Dev help. Um love it hey, we have the we have the product, we want to go and build, build a brand and tell a story or hey. We have some traction now, but like is our sales process as clean as it could be? You know we’re not really, we’re on a spreadsheet, not a CRM, and we come in and help them in all those different areas. I love it. What a fun stage and you’re really attracting, I think the types of people listening to this podcast and so for those of you listening.
I hope, you’re really listening carefully, because a lot of you are at that stage where you’re launching or launched, and now that you’ve launched you kind of look around. You say: okay, we’re making money. Um we’ve got revenue coming in, we’ve got great team.
What do we do next, and – and so I love people like you, who can actually jump in and say, Here’s the strategy, here’s what needs to happens next, but let’s evaluate where you’re at right now that that kind of, where you’re at in a lot of ways, Yeah absolutely and that’s where we’d have like a lot of times, we’ll start with, like a kind of like a corporate strategy, Deep dive project that we work with companies right, look at the financial model. We look at this. You know the the tech stack. We look at the website architecture and we just come in and help make suggestions about. You know love it up.
You know this is this. Is such a great conversation to have you know and as you do this and as you’ve been able to grow to these hund and whatever Plus employees and this team that you’re building?
How, where do you anticipate taking it, I mean? What’s your strategy, do you have an exit plan or is this kind of a forever grow and skill game that you’re playing yeah, I mean like uh, you know. I always say that I started working in York ice in kindergarten, because that’s when I met my partner Cloud York for the first time um, and so we really do want too yeah. We want to build something of uh of substance and in scale, and so I think, two areas that we’re doing that is like we’re continuing on our full-service business.
But one of the things that we realized was that companies even earlier in the journey right at that ideation stage um. They have all the same problems, but they have even less done to solve them, and so we’re really trying to productize our full service into a sort of a strategic growth platform that um earlier stage. Entrepreneurs can selfservice thems on and and get more value and uh. You might see. I have like a little stat up here. That says, 80 % of startups fail, and I believe that a lot of that is at those earliest days where they just don’t to our point about hey. These companies are growing everywhere.
They may not have access to some of that strategic advice. They might not have access to some of those resources, so if we can figure out a way to get them some of that stuff even earlier, maybe that number goes down to 75 % or 70 % and then you’re talking about millions of people that are being Able to fulfill their dreams, which to us is a really exciting problem to tackle.
I love it love it. Yeah, there’s, definitely no shortage of people that need the things you’re, giving yes right and that’s it like. How do we reach as many as we can? Because that’s really like you know, we want to have that impact. I love the passion and – and I love the mission – that’s very, very aligned with what I’m doing so. I’M grateful so grateful to have you on the show, because I think we’re both reaching the same target audience with very similar Solutions, and I think we can do nothing but continue to add value to them to hopefully turn that into a 7030 6040 Number right to get people out of failure exactly and because I right you agree, these are like you know, people that are willing to be brave and start a company um.
You know that’s those are the best kind of people in any way that we can help right, I’m all for it. I love it, love it all right, so challenges the big problems that you know, challenges within your own company and then challenges within the companies. You work with, let’s start with your own company as you started, to build and grow this model it it. It doesn’t sound like to me a very easy Prospect of saying: okay shoot. These guys need a CMO, and these guys need a CMO, and we’ve only got three of them. How do we spread these guys out like how did you grow and build the processes to kind of adapt, your team to fit all the challenges that these new Investments are bringing to you yeah?
No, I think that, like I think, one of the biggest problems for us in the earlier stage was like. We wanted to be helpful in everything right and one that becomes like a very complicated thing to try to articulate to people right and then two. That’s a very hard thing to kind of make repeatable and scalable, and so I think we also had to be a little bit more disciplined in our offering and sort of say hey.
These are the four things that we’re going to be really good at then. We’re going to try to build a nice partner Network for when things come in, that we’re not good at and say, hey right, recommend these people to do that right and it’s like, and it’s anybody when you’re chasing.
You know, and we’ve tried to do this company very, like we’ve bootstrapped uh, which also means that, like we had to try to get everything right on the first time, which is really hard to do um, it is, it is – or at least at least partially – not Right and change it really fast right, yeah, absolutely right and that’s the thing I think like for anybody listening, that’s chasing Revenue because they need it to be sustainable.
It’s like sometimes you know, and you got to learn it from doing it, but like sometimes you bend yourself into a pretzel to get the revenue and then it would have been much more Val, faster just to get clients, yeah, just well just to get yeah. Like you know, it’s like, if you spend so much – and this is true if whether it’s a service or whether it’s a product like if you’re going to fall victim to spending so much time trying to fix a bad customer and would be much better served. Realizing that that’s not a fit being okay with it and putting that emphasis towards finding two or three new good customers love it.
I love it and so true spoken like a true bootstrapper too, you know it. It is very much no, I mean really it there’s not many of us that, like to bootstrap and I’m finding that to be more and more true. As I hear a lot of early-stage Founders thinking, okay, I’ve got a good idea. Let me go raise some money. Instead of hay I’ve, already I’ve already onboarded a handful of clients, it seems to be working. I just need some operational money right. Well, one of the things that we’re seeing a little bit more of Todd where we’ve been helpful is like taking successful services.
Companies to your point, which are, are relatively uh, investment, light to get off the ground and then having them, get some action and then, from there productizing an element of the business, either to a make their margins higher on the services side or B.
Right have a product that they can then offer at a higher margin from like more of a SAS perspective right – and I think, that’s a really compelling approach for more entrepreneurs to start doing. I love it, Adam. This has been such a fun conversation and you’re. The type of guy that I think we could probably have another hour and a half really fun conversation. You know talking back and forth about this stuff because we’re both passionate about this and for those of you listening, I highly recommend you go check out what Adams got built he’s got a really amazing platform in helping people like you bridge that gap between hey.
I just launched, and what do I do next and do I need to raise money or should I just try and keep going on this path, and I think that if you’re in those questionable moments go check out what Adam’s doing I mean really, it’s a Very, very cool site, very easy to navigate and um and Adam Before I Let You Go, I always love to get a shout out for somebody who’s. Inspired you to do what you’re doing I mean this is this is not an easy business, you’re you’re high- risk. You know business model, how are you doing it and who inspired you to get into this yeah?
I would say like if I’m goon an give a shout out I’ll, give a shout out to my dad um awesome as a father myself, that’s always good to get the shout out and I would say, like he always said, like find what you’re passionate about and The money will follow right and, like I have always been passionate about storytelling and like when I was a kid I thought I was goon can be Ernest Hemingway.
Uh turns out that I can’t drink very well um, but then I took that and so then I started telling stories as a journalist and then I realized, like I could tell corporate stories and business stories right and that has led to some Of the more financial success, but at the core, I’m still doing what I love, which means I feel like I have really worked a day in my life. I love it, love it, Adam.
Thank you. Thank you for spending time with us today and sharing these insights with our audience, and I truly hope that some people look you up and connect with you, because this really is a value, huge value, you’re adding to the world and SAS companies.
You know it’s not as easy to look sometimes in your corner, who’s advising coaching mentoring, possibly investing getting you to where you need to go without all the scrapes and scratch matches that that people like Adam, have seen so I highly advise you check them out Adam Thanks again for being here and the rest of you we’ll catch you on the next episode, thanks Adam thanks Todd, hey, I hope you enjoyed that interview with Adam. I absolutely loved it had a great post conversation with them as well. I got to record these sometime.
They we have some really good stuff.
We talked about just an amazing, founder, amazing business model and I’m telling you there are few people that I trust out there who are super aligned with wanting to just help.
He wants to help you grow, I want to help you grow and if you don’t have someone in your corner, like Adam you’ve got to have somebody or some people.
What I’m alluding to is that we have a community called the Captain’s Council captains.
Council.com is a community of CEOs and Founders who are aligned with you on their growth Journey. These are people who have successfully launched there, making money they’re generating profits, but they don’t have all the answers and where to go. Next is sometimes a really hard question to ask. So if you don’t know where to go, the best place to go is to a group of peers, other CEOs who are currently operating businesses who want to help you grow because guess what they got.
Questions too, and you might have the answers so check out Captain’s Council today, if you’re interested in collaborating with another group of CEOs who actively operating businesses are right now. This is the place to be Captain council.com. This podcast is just the first step in your growth. In trying to grow in scale, this is the first leg of the journey, and yes, it’s free. It will always be free. Our content is there to help you grow and scale. Our communities are there to help on multiple levels. No, it’s not free, but it’s so worth the money to be part of these communities and discover what it takes to grow in scale thanks.
So much for being here we’re going to catch up with you on the next one.
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