Patrick Fingles grew a successful roofing company with hundreds in the Baltimore-Washington DC area. In 2013, they created software to help new salespeople estimate, quote, and close new roofing sales. They started selling the software to other contractors in 2016 and called it Leap.
Leap grew fast to $7 million ARR in 2021 with Patrick as the CEO. In 2021, they decided to sell a majority of the company to Nexa Equity to give Patrick and his cofounders their “first bite” of successful liquidity and funding to support future growth and acquisitions.
Leap is now the leading contractor management software with CRM, project management, and point-of-sale functionality specifically designed for the unique needs of home improvement contractor and remodelers in the U.S. Leap is now over $20 million in ARR with over 150 employees and full-time contractors and is still growing fast.
Best quote from Patrick:
“It’s so much easier to build apps and software that solve real pain points on the backs of Twilio or other technologies. So you don’t need millions of venture dollars to hire hundreds of developers to develop a real product.
“All you really need is a micro pain point within a business and one dude that knows how to code. Build that thing out and then if you’re passionate about it, start selling the thing. If you build a good product, people love it and they’ll use it for a really long time.”
“And that money comes every single month like a freight train. Recurring revenue is a beautiful thing. That’s why a little $5 million software company is worth more than a $40 million roofing company with 300 employees!”
In this episode, Patrick explains:
- How he grew his successful roofing contractor using their own software to power growth
- How they spun out the software and grew it while still running the contractor business
- How they grew fast by selling their software to larger contractors all over the US
- Why he took on an a growth-oriented equity partner and got a “first bit of the apple” and is still CEO
- How they are growing with expanded marketing, partnerships, and a key acquisition
- Why he enjoys leading a larger software company on the road to $50 million in revenue
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