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The Good and Bad: 5,000 Leads from Salesforce & $15m ARR Later

A $3.25M acquisition at 6x ARR funded by debt without dilution, plus how payments revenue was built

Chris Federspiel · Blackthorn

Published September 6, 2024
About this resource

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What you’ll learn

Chris Federspiel recounts Blackthorn’s bootstrapped growth in event management, including its payments revenue and an acquisition. He explains how debt financing supported the transaction while preserving ownership.

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Key moments

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Fund an equity purchase while bootstrapping

“with me and for context this was 2018 so you were sub you said sub a million of were 300K 300K of AR yeah okay got it so I mean so you were able to buy the how much equity did you have to buy that did they own 60 something okay so it's a lot I mean so we talking like a 100 Grand or like a million you had to come up with closer to 100 closer to 100 yeah but remember this is like bootstraps like to my name I had like 130k yeah well midpoint there is 600k so if we say closer to a million it be lower end yeah I'll tell you whatever”

Build revenue from payments

“strategy there you know percent of gmv um our like okay so we're we're coming up on 17 million we've got like 16.9 now our stripe Revenue share is like million and a half AR um but of that customers don't see any of that that's that's just from us processing card volume and we Salesforce world is used to sorry sorry when you say 1.5 you're saying 1.5 million is what you paid to stripe as no no that's what they pay us okay that's what your customers”

Use M&A to add critical talent

“contractors fulltime so there's about 100 currently and we're adding another like five six seven now something like this very cool well it's it obviously scales one of the ways you've scaled and added critical talent to the team is through you know opportunistic m&a uh walk us through when you did your first m&a deal and you were kind enough to actually share the real Loi or at least a chunk of it the real Loi when you acquired a company called PCY why this company uh it was a single developer company he was a friend when you have a payments app being PCI compliance”

Compare debt with equity financing

“was cheaper than what it would have been to go out and raise a big Equity round yeah I mean how did you do that analysis so so I still have 60 2% of the company and employees have 15% and then friends and family 5% and the rest is with some big stuff um but the reason I wanted to dive deeper there that there was some heartache uh Jason calak says 5% I went through the launch accelerator okay I understand it let's move on I they were”

TAM FOCUS: Higher Education

“TAM FOCUS: Higher Education”

TAM FOCUS: Non-profits

“TAM FOCUS: Non-profits”

Why I Bought PCIFY

“PCI checks complimented our Payments app”

Deal Terms

“$3.25M, a 6x multiple on $550K ARR”

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  • The Good and Bad: 5,000 Leads from Salesforce & $15m ARR Later - Slide Deck

About the speaker
Chris Federspiel

Chris Federspiel

CEO · Blackthorn

Chris Federspiel is the CEO and Co-founder of Blackthorn. He is a graduate of the George Washington University. He loves cycling and lives to make things easier, including, as he says, “I get annoyed by squeaky doors that need WD-40.” He has a simple philosophy regarding what he does — “If we can build something that’s remarkably easier to use, while delivering far more value to customers, that’s a great thing. We’ll love it, customers will love it, and we’ll all benefit.”

Company revenue
$16M
Team size
88

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Each slide with a short explanation of what it shows. Open the slide text for its exact wording.

12 passages

Salesforce leads and growth

  1. Slide text

    SaaSOpen, September 2024 The Good and Bad: 5,000 Leads from Salesforce & $15m ARR Later Chris Federspiel CEO of Blackthorn.io

Blackthorn growth

  1. Blackthorn ARR rises over time

    The monthly ARR bars climb from just above $3M in January 2021 to above $15M by July 2024, with sustained growth across the period.

    Slide text

    Blackthorn Growth

  2. Higher education segments guide coverage

    The infographic divides education accounts into field sales, mid-market, for-profit institutions, community colleges, and K-12. It pairs those segments with customer and sales-team counts, then shows university logos as examples.

    Slide text

    TAM FOCUS: Higher Education

Focusing the TAM

  1. Nonprofit accounts have distinct tiers

    The slide segments nonprofit organizations by employee size, from emerging small businesses through mid-market, and maps each tier to target accounts and customer counts. A logo panel illustrates the range of nonprofit organizations.

    Slide text

    TAM FOCUS: Non-profits

  2. Revenue shifts toward events and payments

    The table tracks revenue composition by account category from FY17 to FY23. Events and payments rise from 29% in FY17 to 78% in FY23, while professional services falls from 83% in FY18 to 1% in FY21.

    Slide text

    Revenue Composition

  3. Teams span product, operations, and revenue

    The organization chart lays out product, finance and operations, customer success, engineering, and revenue functions beneath executive leadership. The revenue group includes sales, onboarding, marketing, and revenue strategy roles.

    Slide text

    Org Chart

  4. PCI fit motivated the PCIFY purchase

    The stated reasons are familiarity with the owner, complementary PCI checks for the payments app, and gaining more product to sell instead of partnering. The slide also notes a 2.5 year payment term.

    Slide text

    Why I Bought PCIFY PCIFY I knew the owner PCI checks complimented our Payments app Instead of partnering More product to sell We did a 2.5 year payment term

Acquisition terms and rationale

  1. Textey combined customer demand and debt

    The slide says customers wanted SMS and buying avoided build and integration work. It lists a $3.25M price at a 6x multiple on $550K ARR, a $1.2M down payment, and $2M paid quarterly over 24 months, funded through debt with no dilution.

    Slide text

    Deal Terms $3.25M, a 6x multiple on $550K ARR $1.2M Down payment $2M over 24 months, paid quarterly Funded via debt, no dilution High Level Reasons Surveyed customers wanted SMS Buy instead of build, no integration work I reached out to Clint The revenue helped NRR Why I bought Textey

  2. Payments listing presents a Salesforce app

    The marketplace screenshot presents Blackthorn Payments as a Salesforce-native payment product, with examples of card and ACH processing, subscriptions, and field service payments. The embedded product preview communicates how the app is positioned.

  3. Events listing presents event workflows

    The marketplace screenshot presents Blackthorn Events for event registration, management, and reporting. Its product panel emphasizes in-person, virtual, and hybrid events and Salesforce-native workflows.

  4. ARR growth continues past $15M

    The repeated growth chart tracks monthly ARR from January 2021 through July 2024, rising from just above $3M to above the $15M gridline.

    Slide text

    Blackthorn Growth

  5. Thank you and follow up

    The speaker closes by thanking the audience and inviting them to get in touch after the talk.

    Slide text

    SaaSOpen, September 2024 Thank you! [redacted email] Chris Federspiel CEO of Blackthorn.io