Skip to resource content
Founder conversationBuilder <$5m

How I Exited For $200m

... And Why I Spent $12m on new MVP

Jon Darbyshire · SmartSuite

Published September 1, 2022
Watch the full conversation
About this resource

Jon Darbyshire CEO of SmartSuite shares the three Part Story of how he:

- Founded a SaaS business that became and industry leader and sold to EMC for $200m

- Transitioned from operator to advisor role and invested in over 400 companies directly or thought venture funds

- Identified a new market opportunity, and couldn’t wait to jump back in and personally invested $12.5M

Explore the lesson. Sign in to access the slide download.

What you’ll learn

Jon Darbyshire explains SmartSuite’s customer focus, selective use of capital, and deliberate approach to winning larger accounts. The conversation also covers product architecture, affiliate distribution, and the competitive ambition behind the company story.

Read the source passages

Key moments

Find the ideas you need and go straight to the source.

Raise capital selectively

“priced at fifty thousand dollars a pop an average customer for us was around four hundred grand with some add-ons uh that were there okay and i'll tell you the story and how we sold that in a minute which is interesting as well so here's kind of the basics of the story so my background prior to founding archer was i had the opportunity to build the global cyber security practice at ernst young and i had the chance to travel the world we had about 1500 consultants in that practice i meet with customers to”
Watch at 02:56

Focus the ideal customer

“and then onboarding companies that were acquired uh by the organization so this deck this memorandum that we put together allowed us to get an offer for 187 million but what was key when when we got to the loi here is that we also got to keep the cash that was in the business so the deal was really north of 200 million because of that simple item and the way we got to that point and it's key for a”
Watch at 09:13

Win enterprise credibility

“then if we go to the next slide talk a little bit about because there's a lot of people here building inside sales teams which is your third lesson learned here talk to us a little bit how you structure that inside sales team how many reps quota targets things like that sure so one of the lessons learned was that we should have done inside sales earlier bain capital came to us and said hey this is a growth engine you really need to get going we had four sales reps that made up the in the 2008 number that you see there we had seven sales rep that made up the”
Watch at 15:35

Improve product architecture

“you went this route i mean you had what are the numbers you hired hundreds of contractors yeah so we basically we have no employees in place i have two co-founders we hired teams of people inside of companies i think we have five different main companies that we work with from a development perspective so we have a mobile team we have a web team we have names because people are on the computers what's the mobile team you used yeah so we use e-creative out of ukraine i'll talk about ukraine in just”
Watch at 21:57

Build affiliate distribution

“mention that at the end it's they're in a difficult spot and you know they're people just like us they talk like us work like us i mean they're just normal people they wake up one day and they're getting bombed and we have people in cities that that don't have places to live anymore they don't have gas electric power they're cooking outside with fire they can't leave the cities that they're in it's just incredible some people we can't communicate with for two three days at a time until they get a mobile single to to just send a text to let us know that they're okay”
Watch at 28:09

A profitable path to exit

“The Archer Story The Opportunity Services only approach to solving security and compliance concerns From Idea to GRC Industry Leader The Idea Manage security like any other business process The Challenge Companies wanted to use slightly different processes Boot Strapped Sold first customer before writing a line of code Market Focus Financial services, technology, healthcare, telecom, pharma Renewal Rates 97.6% over 9 years Series A Partnered with Bain Ventures in year 8 Revenue $40M ARR - profitable from year 1 The Exit Sold to EMC for $200M in year 9 Part 1”
Read slide 5

Profits create optionality

“We had optionality because of profits … absolutely key”
Read slide 11

Learning directly from customers

“Things We Did Right There is more to a SaaS company’s success than “Product Features” Learned From Our CustomersI camped out at customer sites and watched how they used our product Focused Sales StrategyFocused first on top 30 financial services companies in US Used our Own ProductEvery person in our company used our product daily - no exceptions Detailed Customer Profiles“Hug Your Customer” training to teach employees how best to engage with our customers Invested in Our PeopleHired from IBM, Accenture, Deloitte, EY, PWC Associates ProgramHired from local colleges - partnered with professors Simple Hiring MetricsEvery 100K in revenue meant we could hire a new employee Analyst RelationshipsHelped define new market category (GRC) Partnered with BainHelped us better understand our business / customers User Group ChairmanChief Information Security Officer (primary buyer) - two year term User ConferencesAnnual 3-day event with customer key notes and breakouts Partner NetworkArcher Certified Professionals - there are now over 10,000 of them”
Read slide 14

Architecture, speed, and scale

“3 Lessons Learned Things we could have done better Architecture Matters Speed, performance and scalability are features 1, 2 and 3 Do it right now, or you will pay for it later Internationalization / Localization The global market is bigger than the US market Much harder to implement this later Inside Sales The process is as important as the people you hire Hire in 3’s, as great sales rep’s like to compete”
Read slide 15

Why the MVP investment mattered

“Key Takeaways $12.5m on MVP isn’t crazy Pricing starts $10/mo/user, up to 10k users Over 600 active trials in first 6 weeks 300 partners, comparison sites key to early growth Seed/Series A discussions now”
Read slide 23

Preview slides

Open slide preview in Google Slides

Resource files

  • Video

    Watch video

  • $187m Exit Memo

  • How I Exited For $200m - Slide Deck

About the speaker
Jon Darbyshire

Jon Darbyshire

Co-founder and CEO · SmartSuite

LinkedInTwitter

Jon Darbyshire is the co-founder and CEO of SmartSuite. Jon is an entrepreneur, product designer, and investor. Jon has a passion for designing and creating software that enhances the productivity of people and teams - by aligning their work around common goals. In 2021, Jon and his team launched SmartSuite, the work management platform that manages any process, from any industry, on one platform. Now, SmartSuite unites essential elements used to get work done, regardless of company size or type.

Company revenue
$4.2M
Team size
200

More founder interviews

Slide text

Find a passage in the slides and open the original deck.

21 passages

From Archer to SmartSuite

  1. Slide 1Open deck

    March 2022 March 2022 | Jon Darbyshire, CEO of SmartSuite Jon Darbyshire CEO of SmartSuite How I Exited For $200m Why I spent $12.5m on new MVP

  2. Slide 2Open deck

    Three Part Story Founded a SaaS business that became and industry leader Sold to EMC for $200m A typical founder journey Transitioned from operator to advisor role Invested in over 400 companies directly or thought venture funds Identified a new market opportunity, and couldn’t wait to jump back in Personally invested $12.5M Operator Investor / Advisor Operator

  3. Slide 3Open deck

    Archer Revenue Growth … this was the last company I founded

  4. Slide 4Open deck

    Our product suite

Building and exiting Archer

  1. Slide 5Open deck

    The Archer Story The Opportunity Services only approach to solving security and compliance concerns From Idea to GRC Industry Leader The Idea Manage security like any other business process The Challenge Companies wanted to use slightly different processes Boot Strapped Sold first customer before writing a line of code Market Focus Financial services, technology, healthcare, telecom, pharma Renewal Rates 97.6% over 9 years Series A Partnered with Bain Ventures in year 8 Revenue $40M ARR - profitable from year 1 The Exit Sold to EMC for $200M in year 9 Part 1

  2. Slide 6Open deck

    Archer Revenue Growth … this was the last company I founded 100 pages we used to get $187m offer This was the magic document - lots of storytelling and proof 2008

  3. Slide 11Open deck

    We had optionality because of profits … absolutely key

  4. Slide 12Open deck

    Archer Revenue Growth … this was the last company I founded $187m Offer We decided to exit in 2009 2009

What Archer did right

  1. Slide 14Open deck

    Things We Did Right There is more to a SaaS company’s success than “Product Features” Learned From Our CustomersI camped out at customer sites and watched how they used our product Focused Sales StrategyFocused first on top 30 financial services companies in US Used our Own ProductEvery person in our company used our product daily - no exceptions Detailed Customer Profiles“Hug Your Customer” training to teach employees how best to engage with our customers Invested in Our PeopleHired from IBM, Accenture, Deloitte, EY, PWC Associates ProgramHired from local colleges - partnered with professors Simple Hiring MetricsEvery 100K in revenue meant we could hire a new employee Analyst RelationshipsHelped define new market category (GRC) Partnered with BainHelped us better understand our business / customers User Group ChairmanChief Information Security Officer (primary buyer) - two year term User ConferencesAnnual 3-day event with customer key notes and breakouts Partner NetworkArcher Certified Professionals - there are now over 10,000 of them

Lessons for the next company

  1. Slide 15Open deck

    3 Lessons Learned Things we could have done better Architecture Matters Speed, performance and scalability are features 1, 2 and 3 Do it right now, or you will pay for it later Internationalization / Localization The global market is bigger than the US market Much harder to implement this later Inside Sales The process is as important as the people you hire Hire in 3’s, as great sales rep’s like to compete

  2. Slide 16Open deck

    The Advisor and Investor Story …builders get bored “advising” I “care” about advising founders - when I can add value I “enjoy” investing in interesting companies and teams I “like” serving on boards (sometimes) I have a “passion” for working with smart people and creating software that people love to use! PART 2

Investing in the SmartSuite MVP

  1. Slide 17Open deck

    The SmartSuite Story Part 3 Why we worked for over 2 years and invested $12.5M in our MVP

  2. Slide 18Open deck

    Lots of tools Market Analysis To many point solutions are causing inefficiencies in the way teams get work done. Employees use 6-8 on average New business workflow, means new tool More tools means more silos Lots of “duplication” and waste No single source of truth All workflows, one space Connect workflows so no duplicates Easily add new workflows CURRENT STATE PROBLEM SOLUTION

  3. Slide 19Open deck

    The Solution Provide 90 - 95% of these product capabilities in a single platform

  4. Slide 20Open deck

    The SmartSuite Platform A unified work management platform that enables teams to plan, track and manage any workflow

  5. Slide 21Open deck

    Over 200 Workflows Teams can select from over 200 workflow templates or create a new workflow - in minutes Core Business Workflows Industry Specific Workflows

  6. Slide 22Open deck

    Next Gen User Interface Designed for the people that do that work - ages 23- 38

  7. Slide 23Open deck

    Key Takeaways $12.5m on MVP isn’t crazy Pricing starts $10/mo/user, up to 10k users Over 600 active trials in first 6 weeks 300 partners, comparison sites key to early growth Seed/Series A discussions now

  8. Slide 24Open deck

    Recommended Founder Reading 2 books every founder should read

  9. Slide 25Open deck

    In summary, I just showed you: Founded a SaaS business that became and industry leader Sold to EMC for $200m A typical founder journey Transitioned from operator to advisor role Invested in over 400 companies directly or thought venture funds Identified a new market opportunity, and couldn’t wait to jump back in Personally invested $12.5M Operator Investor / Advisor Operator

  10. Slide 26Open deck

    March 2022 | Jon Darbyshire | CEO Smartsuite | [redacted email] Jon Darbyshire CEO of SmartSuite