How TeamSupport Reached $10M+ ARR and 1,000 Customers in 2026 (Interview with CEO Grant Stannis)

Cold Open: Acquisition Offer and Revenue Teaser

Nathan Latka

00:00If somebody in this customer support space came to you and offered $175,000,000 all cash, would you take that to your board and level and recommend that you do the deal?

Grant Stannis

00:08>> Yes, we would. Absolutely.

Nathan Latka

00:09What's the largest customer paying you per year today?

Grant Stannis

00:11>> It is a 7 figure, low 7 figure deal is what they're paying us.

Nathan Latka

00:15How many customers are you serving today?

Grant Stannis

00:17>> We've got over a thousand today.

Nathan Latka

00:18If I take your thousand customers times that $10,000 ACV, that puts you at about $10,000,000 of revenue. You're saying you're north of that today?

Grant Stannis

00:24>> We are north of that. Yeah. Let's say that we're we're less than 25. We've way more than 10. How about that?

Nathan Latka

00:28So how many folks registered and how many showed up?

Grant Stannis

00:30>> I wanna say that we had about 400 registered and about 300 showed up.

Guest Introduction and Product Overview

Nathan Latka

00:34Hey, folks. My guest today is Grant Stannis. He is the CEO of Team Support, which helps you turn conversations into revenue, specifically support tickets. Grant, ready? Tickets to the top?

Grant Stannis

00:43>> Let's go, buddy.

Nathan Latka

00:44Okay. Interesting. So we'll wanna obviously get the full story, but let's not we wanna make sure we get the audience into the product before we dive too deep on the story. What is Team Support selling today? What's the product?

Grant Stannis

00:53>> Yeah. So we provide to you sort of a a b to B2B ticketing solution as it relates specifically to, your support conversations. And so think about it as you have an interaction, you record that, the ticket happens, it might be how do I do something in a software, it could be a bug. But our big thing is that ticketing is a commodity. And there you can go and find 40 different solutions of everything that's out there

01:15>> in ticketing. What we do differently is we want to take your support conversations and drive that into better retention and upsell opportunities for you. And so what we do is we take that first party data of your support and we turn it into actual items for you to improve upon in your business.

Nathan Latka

01:32So who are you mainly selling this to since you help drive revenue, but it's a support function? Are you selling to the CRO or the head of customer support or both?

Who TeamSupport Sells To

Grant Stannis

01:39>> Yeah, so it's usually the head of customer support. Most often it is when somebody wants to really create a good linkage between support and product is where we find ourselves to be really great. If you think about CS and small and medium sized software businesses, the key aspect of that, right, is to retain and to grow your customers. And so a lot of CS folks are doing the upsells and it's where this really comes in handy

01:58>> from that perspective.

Nathan Latka

01:59How many customers are you serving today?

Grant Stannis

02:01>> We've got over a thousand today.

Nathan Latka

02:02So don't obviously name them, but when you look at your fastest growing customers, how are they incentivizing CS teams? In other words, are they taking a million dollar book of business in 2025 and giving it to one CS rep and saying turn this into 1,200,000 for 120 percent net dollar retention? And if you do that, you'll get a 5% commission on the extra expansion for the CS rep or how are they actually structuring it?

Grant Stannis

02:22>> Yeah. It's a great it's a good question. So our the way that our like, and and I'll tell you how, like, we do it because this is exactly how we recommend to our, you know, our clients to do it is you're gonna use the signals that customers are doing. Nobody wants those anymore. Right?

How Customers Incentivize CS Teams

Nathan Latka

02:34Interesting. Okay. And I wanna get some of the backstory here in terms of right where you joined 2024, then for today, then talk about AI into the future. Before we do that, though, get my audience in the right realm in terms of what you're charging customers on average per month.

Grant Stannis

02:46>> Yeah. So we, on average, I think per user today, it's a little bit less than I think it's like $79 if you want our top end package, give or take. Okay. And what that comes with actually, take that back. It's $99 with AI. But the aspect is and that's per user. Right? So we do we're doing AI differently than some of our competitors. So we're not trying to do it on a session based. We're not trying

03:08>> to do it on a volume based. What we're trying to say to you is like, hey, get your users to be better and more efficient and really drive what you're doing, go deeper within the organization, and spread that AI across the board. And part of that aspect is that we sell to a lot of small and medium sized businesses. And so as a result of that, they're not trying like the enterprise customers to say, hey, I

Pricing Per Seat and AI Packaging

Grant Stannis

03:26>> got 3,000 support reps. I want to take this down to 2,500 next year. Right? If you're a growing SaaS organization, what you're saying is I got 10 support reps and I don't want to add an eleventh next year. What I will add is more experience and more costs. I've got five CS reps. CS is like our number two users in our platform. Right? Like how do you drive those from a different perspective? And so that's what

03:46>> we're trying to do with our price volume. And so on average, we're picking up the support, the CS, as well as probably some of the product folks, in some cases the finance team as well in our organizations.

Nathan Latka

03:56So just to make sure I understand, the average customer today is paying you a $100 a month?

Grant Stannis

03:59>> No. No. No.

Nathan Latka

04:00It's direct pay.

Grant Stannis

04:01>> Yeah. The average customer is paying us well over $10,000.

04:05Per year?

04:05>> Yeah. Exactly.

Nathan Latka

04:06Okay. So what's that average team size typically? People are signing for, what, 10 seats, 50, a 100 seats an hour? That's an hour time?

Grant Stannis

04:11>> Yeah. Give or take.

Nathan Latka

04:12Yeah. Interesting. Okay. I mean, can I take a thousand paying customers'time? Is that $10,000 ACV to kind of back into your revenue?

Grant Stannis

04:18>> You would shortchange us, but it is a way you know, we have that is kind of our new logo. One of the things and again, this goes to the value of our software is we're really great at bringing customers in and say, for example, bringing them in at a $10,000 and then two to three years from now, them being sort of $2,030,000 dollars from their perspectives. And so our top, like, if you go look at our

04:41>> top customers, one of the big things that we've done is we've taken them from the $10,000 to $15,000 customers to several $100,000 across the board from their perspectives.

Nathan Latka

04:50So what's the don't name the customer logo, Adi, but what's the largest customer paying you per year today?

Grant Stannis

04:54>> It is a 7 figured low 7 figure deal is what they're paying us. Yeah.

Nathan Latka

04:58Wow. Yeah. Wow. Okay. That's a big team. Okay. So just to be clear, you said I'd quote shortchange you. If I take your thousand customers times that $10,000 a day, that puts you at about $10,000,000 of revenue. You're saying you're north of that today.

Grant Stannis

05:09>> We are north of that. Yeah. We we don't really you know, being a private equity backed company, we don't really disclose all of our metrics. But what I can tell you is is that that is let's say that we're we're less than 25, but way more than 10. How about that?

Nathan Latka

05:22Okay. I love that. Thanks for being as transparent as you could there. Let's talk more about that. That's a new element of the story of private equity. So the company got going in 2008, you joined in 2024. Did the private equity firm make you like basically place you into the company?

Grant Stannis

05:33>> They they did not. I came in so in 2019 so the the private equity firm actually bought this business in 2018. And then the founder kind of transitioned to the board role in '20 I want say it was around 2020. And we had another CEO who was in the role before me between 2020 and 2024 when I came on.

Nathan Latka

05:53Okay. Okay. Interesting. And so that that deal in 2018 by private which private equity firm was that?

Grant Stannis

05:59>> Level Equity.

Average Contract Value and Revenue Estimate

Nathan Latka

06:00Oh, okay. Okay. Great. Okay. Interesting. So got it. So that deal happened in in 2018 and just to be so sorry. Just to be they bought a majority stake?

Grant Stannis

06:08>> They did. Yes. They're they're the the vast majority owner. Yeah. Exactly.

Nathan Latka

06:12Okay. And give me more about your background before you joined this business in 2024. What were you doing?

Grant Stannis

06:17>> Yeah. So I started ironically, I always tell people, I started my first career in politics before I got some good advice from one of the comptrollers here in the state of Texas that if I wanted to make money and not go to jail, that I needed to get the hell out of politics. So good business, great companies that we just need to come in and took it kind of from, you know, 3% to 30% growth in

06:35>> a very short period of time. And then, you know, here at Team Support, right, again, like we're going through this really crazy AI transition transaction world, right, in support. And it's been a really fun journey to go through with what we've been working on. And so that's been a really fun lead. One of the things you'll hear about my story, and I'm very different than sort of some founders, is I'm a firm believer in profitable growth.

06:58>> And so we don't take on debt or capital to go raise, to go drive, you know, incremental growth in the business. What we do is we've source funded ourselves through our customers of growing them time and time again from that perspective.

Nathan Latka

07:13Guys, remember, I am not just a YouTuber. I'm investing into my third fund. We've deployed $250,000,000 into 550 software companies so far. Again, at founderpath.com. If you're interested in capital, I would love to cut you a check because I know you're investing in your education. You watch my show. So sign up at founderpath.com. And when you get the onboarding email, I reply and I see all those just reply and say, Nathan, I found you through YouTube

07:36and I'll make sure to prioritize you. I would love to cut you a check. Check out founderpath.com.

Grant Stannis

07:41>> Mhmm.

Nathan Latka

07:42Really interesting. What

Grant Stannis

07:43>> You're gonna have them based. You're gonna have your bonus, but that equity slug is really based upon the value that you create. Now some folks will structure it too and differently, which is I don't wanna give you transactions, so I'm gonna give you a transaction bonus. The problem with transaction bonuses, you don't get the really great tax activities associated with, you know, like a profits interest or, you know, sort of the the options, the different pieces.

08:02>> And I really wanna run a business. I don't wanna just take you through a moment in time if that makes sense.

Nathan Latka

08:07It does. Take me back to your last board meeting. What was the most uncomfortable thing you had to disclose to level equity at that board meeting?

Grant Stannis

08:14>> Yeah. I mean, we lost probably what would have been one of our, you know, it was a top 10 customer of ours, right? And it's one in which you sit there and you think about just crazy. And you're like, how do I frame this? Like, I've got to take ownership as the CEO. I've got to like show them that there's positivity in the business and that this is a one off. And you know what Level said

Company History and Level Equity Acquisition

Grant Stannis

08:36>> to me that was really great was this happens to every great CEO. Thanks for telling me. We know that this was a hard message. Now what are you going to do to go recover that revenue? Right? Now I've been through this once or twice before so I knew that I had that answer ready of like, here's how we're gonna go get that revenue. But that is something where people really struggle with the PEs. They're gonna bury

08:59>> the news in the headline or they're not gonna take accountability. They're gonna blame somebody else and the box starts with you. Right? Like, and it's it. At the end of the day, like, I wasn't the person, I wasn't the CSM on that account. I'm not our chief revenue officer, but I am the CEO of this business and we lost a customer and I had to go have that conversation with the board. Right?

Nathan Latka

09:17Interesting. Take us inside that same board meeting. You know, that was the probably the q four twenty twenty five meeting. We're doing this interview in January 2026. You know, you're obviously now working for level equity. What is the objective they are trying to hit? You know, what is the hold time they have for this? Is it a part of a fund that's maturing in three years so they want you to exit it by 2028? And if

09:36so, what kinds of leading indicators are they looking for for you over the next twelve to twenty four months in terms of rule of 40, what percent is profit versus growth, things like that.

Grant Stannis

09:45>> Yeah, I mean, so every company and this is what's great about investors, if they're a larger fund, they're probably gonna be looking at like two types, right, depending upon how big the deal is. So Level would be

Nathan Latka

09:54happy with a two time outcome here.

Grant Stannis

09:56>> I mean Level I don't think Level would be happy with a two time outcome at all, right? No, level's notorious. And if you listen to Ben and Sarah talk about it, there's a very consistent number that they do try to achieve, right? I know what numbers are going to fly and what numbers are not going to fly with them because we had that level setting. And it's not always, don't get me wrong, there is a negotiation

Background of the CEO Before Joining

Grant Stannis

10:15>> that happens between you and your board, right? Because there's an obligation, there's everything else that happens. But like, if you have that alignment, your board meetings are way better, if that makes sense. Yeah.

Nathan Latka

10:25You're coming in, I mean, tell me if I'm wrong here. You're coming in though to a high pressure situation. Level bought the company in 2018. You said it yourself. They're in the moving business, not the storage business. This company has been in quote storage six years when you joined and now sort of seven, eight years now today. You gotta get into the moving business here at some point. I mean, if I'm reading my tea cards correctly,

10:46you really came in as the CEO to go sell this company in the next twelve to twenty four months.

Grant Stannis

10:49>> Look, I've had several successful exits in my career at different stages, right? What I will say is, you know, we will at some point in time, there will be a transaction. And, yes, most of the situations I walk into are extraordinarily high pressured because of one situation or another. Right? And that's that's my MO as a CEO and what I built my career upon. Did M and A for ten years. If you want high pressure, go

11:15>> do that for a long time. Right? But you're absolutely right. There will be an event and it will be coming up. The one thing I will say about Level is that they are so notoriously awesome about they take a very different approach than some private equities that I've worked with. Some of them, to your exact point, will be at a certain date and time we will sell because that's what this fund requires us to do. Level

11:35>> is very creative because they do what's best for their investors and the company and the customers and the employees. And I couldn't speak more highly of them because exactly that perspective that they've got. So yes, the pressure is on me to perform. The date is to be determined, if you will.

Nathan Latka

11:50Yep. You're between ten and twenty five million of ARR today. If somebody in this customer support space came to you and offered $175,000,000 all cash, right, to you via email, would you take that to your board and level and recommend that you do the deal?

Grant Stannis

12:03>> Yes, we would. Absolutely. Right? I mean, that's a great return That's a big answer why. It's it's a great return for anybody. I mean, even even at like think of it like I said, a 175 divided by right? That's an 8.75 x multiple. That is a great return for a private equity to get eight seven five, like, take it in a heartbeat.

Nathan Latka

12:22Yep. Yep. Interesting. And so there's no so the counter to this is it'd be very stupid not to ask me have me ask you questions about how you grow these We've talked a lot about sort of intricacies of private equity and why you joined as professional CEO, but how are you adding customers this month in January 2026? I tried to find a digital footprint. You have some SEO traffic here, but not a ton, like who's driving

12:43most of the growth?

Grant Stannis

12:44>> We go ask our customers. We, our customers are a cult following. One of the things that like we found, especially in these big spaces like discredited spaces is like, could go spend a ton of money on SEO, but Zen and Fresh are gonna spend a 100 times more than I could even possibly spend in a month. So what we do is we do an old school philosophy of we mapped out our customers, we know who they're

13:06>> friends with and what they go do, and we go and we say to them, Hey, can you make an introduction for me? And by the way, we'll give you, you know, like a discount on your renewal as a result of that. We don't, And again, like this is us being thrifty. We go, we'll send one or two folks. I spoke at the last Support Driven. We'll probably send a speaker at a later date. But we go

Board Meeting Transparency and Losing a Top Customer

Grant Stannis

13:24>> and we talk and we create communities. They've got a Slack community where people ask questions. How do I do the following? And we go and we chase those. And it's not necessarily about trying to, that's how we build brand awareness rather than advertising. We spend it by creating communities. The other thing that we'll do is we'll do, you know, webinars aren't about, hey, how can you really understand team support, right? It's really about how can you

13:48>> be a better customer support professional and how can you drive more from it? Get yourself a seat at the table and that's what we do.

Nathan Latka

13:54So what do you consider a winning webinar? I'm trying to find a recording, one of your webinars on your site, but what do you consider a webinar that works really well for you?

Grant Stannis

14:00>> So we had one like from a from a go to market perspective, we had one recently with a woman named Donna Weber. Donna Weber is an onboarding specialist and she's got a cult following of people. And so it was kind of a cross promotional deal. She got to come on and talk about her capabilities in front of an audience that could potentially buy from her. She brought her audience to a team sport event that we could

14:21>> potentially buy from them. And so for both of us, we invested some time in basically cross advertising, and it's a really cheap way in a very crowded space to let people know who you are.

Nathan Latka

14:31So how many folks registered and how many showed up?

Grant Stannis

14:33>> I wanna say that we had about 400 registered and about 300 showed up give or take.

Nathan Latka

14:37Okay. Well, that feels pretty good. Did you try and close people live on that call or what's the outcome? How do you know if it was good?

Grant Stannis

14:42>> We will follow-up with them. And so we got a few leads from our perspective. Obviously, you know, Donna's probably gonna do her own from her own perspective. But you know, from ours, we actually got a decent amount that would probably be about a month or two of bookings if they convert.

Nathan Latka

14:56Very cool. Alright. I I just realized we're three minutes over. I I wanna be respectful of your time, so let's wrap up here. Grant, if people wanna learn more about you, where can they find you online?

Grant Stannis

15:03>> Yeah. Go check us out at teamsport.com. Check me out on LinkedIn, Grant Stanis. We'd love to hear more about you. Come talk to us. We don't have to sell you anything. We just wanna evangelize about how to be a great support person.

Exit Timeline and PE Expectations

Nathan Latka

15:12Has a great story today. Launched in 2008 with three co founders. Ultimately in 2018, Level Equity came in. Great firm combination of equity plus debt, bought the business. In 2020, the founders moved to the board. In 2024, Grant came in as a CEO. He's worked at companies backed by Excel KKR, other massive private equity firms. You know, these kinds of professional CEOs like Grant are looking for two to 6% sort of equity slugs base plus bonus,

15:35and ultimately is coming in going, how do we grow this thing? Some combination of rule of 40. Well, today in 2026, team support is supporting over a thousand customers. Users are paying $900 a month, but customers are paying $10,000 ACV. So call between 10 and $25,000,000 of AR with the largest customers paying upwards of 7 figures to use the tool. He'll continue to scale. We'll see what happens next. Check him out at teamsupport.com. Grant, thanks for

15:59taking us this out.

Grant Stannis

16:00>> Thanks Ian.

Nathan Latka

16:01You won't believe this CEO's revenue. Click here to watch the next episode right now.