4 ms·

Churn Buster Gets Acquired

45 points by michaelbuckbee 11y ago

adraper 11y ago
I've known Ken for many years, and I can say without doubt Churnbuster's exactly what he's great at. I've also followed what Matt/Joelle have done for awhile and think quite highly of the whole team. I'm sure they'll do some great stuff with this product—i'll definitely be referring it to many people in the future!
michaelbuckbee 11y ago
I posted this as I'm just constantly amazed at what a dynamic and big ecosystem that Stripe has created around itself.
goldvine 11y ago
Thanks for sharing, Michael! Matt here, new CEO of Churn Buster. We're so freaking excited about working with Andrew, and our other investor Rob Walling (getdrip.com). Andrew has really built something special here and I think his excitement shines through in his announcement video. If you have any questions about the acquisition/round of funding (it was pretty unique) or about churn, failed payments, etc. just post 'em here!
patio11 11y ago
That's awesome news -- I (well, AR) had been a customer since very early days in the life of the product. It integrated pretty painlessly and basically gave us an accounts receivable department without having either myself or my sales rep having to spend lots of time calling $29 a month accounts to see if they were soft-canceling or just having transient billing failures. The ROI on it was stupendous -- I remember saving $100 in MRR in the first two days on a $50 a month plan. Anecdotally, there seems to be a wave of mini-acquisitions going through the small-SaaS-osphere this last year or so. I think it's an interesting development, partially do to the obvious reasons (money for founders is nice), partially as it frees up founders to move onto their next level, partially since these seem to be better digested than acquisitions in VC land, and partially just because it is interesting to see this side of the fence maturing a bit.
- goldvine 11y ago
  That's really great to hear, Patrick. We're pretty excited about how we structured the deal, and it's definitely not the way things are done in Silicon Valley. Even down to the expectations of our investors. We're setting out to grow a profitable business with the goal of early and lasting distributions for investors...not with the goal of an eventual mega-exit. Happy to answer any detailed questions specifically about the structure/acquisition process (negotiation/due diligence/lawyers/etc), something you know plenty about :-) Also of note, we didn't use an escrow account, or a website broker. This probably saved about $20k-$30k. We had an advisor, JD Graffam of SimpleFocus, that helped coach us along the way based on his experience acquiring products like Ballpark App.
  - porter 11y ago
    I'd be interested in this. How was the deal structured? What did your due diligence phase look like? What sort of multiple of revenue range is this in?
    - goldvine 11y ago
      Can't specify any financial details (sorry!), but the whole process lasted about 3 months. Legal fees were reasonable using a local attorney that another startup introduced us to (with experience in M&A). Due diligence included reviewing ROI reports (how well the product works for clients), financial reports of the company (where does revenue stand, how fast is it growing), current customer lists, past customer lists, all support conversations (how happy are customers, how fast are support requests handled), and gathering listings of accounts in-use that would need to be transferred. We decided on a purchase price before entering due diligence, but saved equity offerings until after the deal had closed. At that point, we brought in our investors, and offered Andrew a priced option to invest (at a higher valuation than the purchase price based on the expanded team and advisors). If you don't have guidance from someone with experience, you should probably use a broker. And if you don't know the seller super-well, you should probably use an escrow company for the transfer of assets. In our case, we knew we were working with a stand-up guy based on our friendship with Andrew, and how wonderful he was throughout the entire process. Let me know if I can answer anything else! Matt
aculver 11y ago
Hey all, I'm the creator of Churn Buster. Over two years ago I was working on Stripe web hook emails for a client and spending way too much time tuning, tweaking, and maintaining them. Every little improvement was yielding even greater conversion rates and more money in the bank. At that point, I suggested that instead of paying me so much to maintain the in-house dunning system on their behalf, I could create a service that did the same thing but better, and charge them $200/mo instead. The plan was to subsidize the cost of development by selling the product to friends who were having the same problem. I've been working on it and growing it ever since. I'm really proud of some of the incredible companies and brands I've had the opportunity to work with in the last two years, (some of them are listed on the new product homepage,) but I'm also really pleased to now be able to put the product into the hands of Matt, Joelle, and Ken and let them take it's growth from this point forward. Happy to answer any questions anyone may have!
TeeWEE 11y ago
Wow, the website of churn buster explains NOWHERE how churnbuster actually works. Just pointing to tweets, and saying you have "algorithms" doesnt cut it. This is a crap landing page (for tech savvies). But maybe only marketing guys are landing at that page.
- goldvine 11y ago
  Sorry about that TeeWEE! we needed something quick for the time-sensitive announcement and are drafting a more descriptive site at the moment :-) happy to answer any questions in the interim
- zeeshanm 11y ago
  patio11 summarized churnbuster pretty well here: >> [Churnbuster] integrated pretty painlessly and basically gave us an accounts receivable department without having either myself or my sales rep having to spend lots of time calling $29 a month accounts to see if they were soft-canceling or just having transient billing failures.
- 55555 11y ago
  I use them. They just email (or call if you want) your failed billings and ask them to update their cards.

I've known Ken for many years, and I can say without doubt Churnbuster's exactly what he's great at. I've also followed what Matt/Joelle have done for awhile and think quite highly of the whole team. I'm sure they'll do some great stuff with this product—i'll definitely be referring it to many people in the future!

michaelbuckbee 11y ago

I posted this as I'm just constantly amazed at what a dynamic and big ecosystem that Stripe has created around itself.

goldvine 11y ago

Thanks for sharing, Michael! Matt here, new CEO of Churn Buster. We're so freaking excited about working with Andrew, and our other investor Rob Walling (getdrip.com). Andrew has really built something special here and I think his excitement shines through in his announcement video. If you have any questions about the acquisition/round of funding (it was pretty unique) or about churn, failed payments, etc. just post 'em here!

patio11 11y ago

That's awesome news -- I (well, AR) had been a customer since very early days in the life of the product. It integrated pretty painlessly and basically gave us an accounts receivable department without having either myself or my sales rep having to spend lots of time calling $29 a month accounts to see if they were soft-canceling or just having transient billing failures. The ROI on it was stupendous -- I remember saving $100 in MRR in the first two days on a $50 a month plan. Anecdotally, there seems to be a wave of mini-acquisitions going through the small-SaaS-osphere this last year or so. I think it's an interesting development, partially do to the obvious reasons (money for founders is nice), partially as it frees up founders to move onto their next level, partially since these seem to be better digested than acquisitions in VC land, and partially just because it is interesting to see this side of the fence maturing a bit.

goldvine 11y ago
That's really great to hear, Patrick. We're pretty excited about how we structured the deal, and it's definitely not the way things are done in Silicon Valley. Even down to the expectations of our investors. We're setting out to grow a profitable business with the goal of early and lasting distributions for investors...not with the goal of an eventual mega-exit. Happy to answer any detailed questions specifically about the structure/acquisition process (negotiation/due diligence/lawyers/etc), something you know plenty about :-) Also of note, we didn't use an escrow account, or a website broker. This probably saved about $20k-$30k. We had an advisor, JD Graffam of SimpleFocus, that helped coach us along the way based on his experience acquiring products like Ballpark App.
- porter 11y ago
  I'd be interested in this. How was the deal structured? What did your due diligence phase look like? What sort of multiple of revenue range is this in?
  - goldvine 11y ago
    Can't specify any financial details (sorry!), but the whole process lasted about 3 months. Legal fees were reasonable using a local attorney that another startup introduced us to (with experience in M&A). Due diligence included reviewing ROI reports (how well the product works for clients), financial reports of the company (where does revenue stand, how fast is it growing), current customer lists, past customer lists, all support conversations (how happy are customers, how fast are support requests handled), and gathering listings of accounts in-use that would need to be transferred. We decided on a purchase price before entering due diligence, but saved equity offerings until after the deal had closed. At that point, we brought in our investors, and offered Andrew a priced option to invest (at a higher valuation than the purchase price based on the expanded team and advisors). If you don't have guidance from someone with experience, you should probably use a broker. And if you don't know the seller super-well, you should probably use an escrow company for the transfer of assets. In our case, we knew we were working with a stand-up guy based on our friendship with Andrew, and how wonderful he was throughout the entire process. Let me know if I can answer anything else! Matt

aculver 11y ago

Hey all, I'm the creator of Churn Buster. Over two years ago I was working on Stripe web hook emails for a client and spending way too much time tuning, tweaking, and maintaining them. Every little improvement was yielding even greater conversion rates and more money in the bank. At that point, I suggested that instead of paying me so much to maintain the in-house dunning system on their behalf, I could create a service that did the same thing but better, and charge them $200/mo instead. The plan was to subsidize the cost of development by selling the product to friends who were having the same problem. I've been working on it and growing it ever since. I'm really proud of some of the incredible companies and brands I've had the opportunity to work with in the last two years, (some of them are listed on the new product homepage,) but I'm also really pleased to now be able to put the product into the hands of Matt, Joelle, and Ken and let them take it's growth from this point forward. Happy to answer any questions anyone may have!

TeeWEE 11y ago

Wow, the website of churn buster explains NOWHERE how churnbuster actually works. Just pointing to tweets, and saying you have "algorithms" doesnt cut it. This is a crap landing page (for tech savvies). But maybe only marketing guys are landing at that page.

goldvine 11y ago
Sorry about that TeeWEE! we needed something quick for the time-sensitive announcement and are drafting a more descriptive site at the moment :-) happy to answer any questions in the interim
zeeshanm 11y ago
patio11 summarized churnbuster pretty well here: >> [Churnbuster] integrated pretty painlessly and basically gave us an accounts receivable department without having either myself or my sales rep having to spend lots of time calling $29 a month accounts to see if they were soft-canceling or just having transient billing failures.
55555 11y ago
I use them. They just email (or call if you want) your failed billings and ask them to update their cards.