Who’s still getting a lot of attention from acquirers and investors these days in B2B SaaS, with serious multiples?
Sticky “run your business” vertical SaaS apps that are both a system of record and a system of action that businesses won’t give up easily.
These SaaS stalwarts can grow steadily and efficiently, and keep compounding for a long, long time.
But they are also very hard to get started. Lots of software to build, and businesses don’t change their core systems quickly.
Robin Eissler 🚀 is the founder and CEO of BoosterHub, a vertical SaaS platform built for high school booster clubs.
After selling her prior business as a private jet broker, Robin volunteered to run a local booster club and discovered a messy problem run with spreadsheets, emails, and manual accounting.
She decided to build a single system that could actually handle it.
After four years, BoosterHub now serves nearly 600 booster programs, representing over 100,000 users.
With just two full-time employees and a small dev team, the company processes more than $40M in total transactions across payments, fundraising, merchandise sales, and accounting.
Still independently owned and bootstrapped, BoosterHub is approaching $1M in ARR and profitability.
It has been a long four years building BoosterHub, with big challenges, constant improvement, and no profits or founder income yet.
But this is a sticky, valuable SaaS business that is the core system for a large and growing market.
It’s finally feeling like the flywheel is kicking in, as Robin describes.
“The numbers are much better than what we projected. So we’re starting to see that compounding effect is really what’s happening; there are just enough users and enough people in the system that they’re using more of the add-on products, and we’re processing more volume.
“So it’s starting to have that compounding effect. And so I really just admitted to myself this month, like, I think we’re seeing it.
“I think we’re finally seeing it. I feel like, OK, maybe for me, it’s almost that I can exhale. I’ve been holding my breath for four years, so maybe I can breathe.”
This is an amazing milestone for any system-of-record software company: out of survival mode with more steady revenue and founder income—and fewer near-death crises and challenges.
In this podcast interview, Robin also shares lessons on building complex software with a tiny team, selling to volunteer buyers, surviving seasonal revenue swings, and why slow, compounding growth can create durable SaaS businesses without venture capital.
Check out this amazing interview with Robin Eissler on the Practical Founders Podcast.
