Founder Interview
How SaaS Group Reached $60M ARR Across 20 Acquisitions with a $25M Equity Round (Interview with Co-Founder Tim Schumacher)
- Interview Date
- June 14, 2024
- Interviewee
- Tim SchumacherCo-Founder
Company Metrics at Interview Time
ARR
$60M
Companies Acquired
20
Team Size
300
Equity Round
$25M
Equity Sold
Single digit percent
Historical Snapshot
These numbers were reported by Tim Schumacher during his interview recorded in June 2024 and are a historical snapshot, not current figures. See SaaS Group’s current numbers.
Key Takeaways
- 01SaaS Group closed its first acquisition, DeployBot, in 2018 using 100% of Tim Schumacher's own cash.
- 02The portfolio of 20 companies generates $60M in ARR as of the interview date.
- 03SaaS Group completed a $25M equity round in early 2024, selling only single digit percent of the parent company.
- 04The company targets a profit margin of 20 to 30% across its portfolio.
- 05Typical acquisition multiples range from 2x to 4x ARR.
- 06SaaS Group always acquires 100% of a company and never takes a partial stake.
- 07Two companies, Crosstalent and Zenloop, were acquired out of bankruptcy proceedings.
- 08Rewardful is cited as the fastest growing company in the portfolio.
- 09Post-acquisition at Dash This, SaaS Group cut Google paid budget in half and cut the Google paid budget in half while doubling output, bringing CAC payback down to two and a half months.
- 10SaaS Group uses three funding sources: a debt line of credit, operating cash flow, and the 2024 equity round.
Company Metrics at Time of Interview
| Metric | Value | Source |
|---|---|---|
| ARR (portfolio total) | $60M | Founder interview, June 2024 |
| Companies acquired | 20 | Founder interview, June 2024 |
| Team size | 300 | Founder interview, June 2024 |
| Equity round size | $25M | Founder interview, June 2024 |
| Equity sold in round | Single digit percent | Founder interview, June 2024 |
| First acquisition year | 2018 | Founder interview, June 2024 |
| Target profit margin (reported Jun 2024) | 20 to 30% | Founder interview, June 2024 |
| Typical acquisition multiple | 2x to 4x ARR | Founder interview, June 2024 |
| Tim Schumacher age at interview | 47 | Founder interview, June 2024 |
Growth Breakdown
Revenue
The 20 companies in the SaaS Group portfolio collectively generate $60M in ARR as of the June 2024 interview. Tim Schumacher confirmed this figure when the host cited it, and noted that individual companies such as Rewardful and Scraper API have been among the fastest growers, with some portfolio companies growing four to five times since acquisition.
Team
SaaS Group employs more than 300 people across its portfolio of 20 companies. The model is decentralized, with individual company leaders empowered to run their businesses while cash flow flows back up to the parent company.
Profitability and Funding
SaaS Group is profitable and targets a 20 to 30% profit margin across the portfolio. The company uses three funding sources: a pre-approved debt line of credit, operating cash flow from the portfolio, and a $25M equity round closed in early 2024 in which only single digit percent of the parent company was sold.
Acquisitions
The first two acquisitions were funded entirely with Tim Schumacher's own capital. Since then, the company has completed 20 acquisitions, including two out of bankruptcy, using a combination of debt, operating cash flow, and equity. Acquisition multiples typically range from 2x to 4x ARR.
Growth Strategy
Acquiring Profitable Niche SaaS Businesses
SaaS Group targets SaaS companies with $1M to $10M in revenue, prioritizing businesses with strong products and the potential to reach 20 to 30% profit margins. The company is comfortable acquiring businesses with high churn or even those coming out of bankruptcy, as long as the product and ARR base are sound.
Operational Improvement Post-Acquisition
After acquiring Dash This, SaaS Group cut the Google paid advertising budget in half while doubling output, cutting the Google paid budget in half while doubling output, bringing CAC payback down to two and a half months. Tim Schumacher credited specialized in-house expertise in disciplines like pay-per-click as a key value-add the group brings to portfolio companies.
Evergreen Hold Strategy Modeled on Constellation Software
SaaS Group does not flip companies and has no fund lifetime forcing a sale. Tim Schumacher cited Constellation Software as a role model and stated the intent is to hold companies indefinitely, preserving the founder's legacy, brand, and product while improving operations.
Pre-Arranged Financing for Speed and Certainty
SaaS Group maintains a pre-approved debt line of credit that can be drawn without deal-by-deal approval, as long as the target meets defined SaaS criteria. This allows the company to move quickly and never risk a deal falling through due to financing uncertainty.
Flexible Deal Structures Aligned with Founder Motivations
Tim Schumacher emphasized understanding the real reason a founder is selling before structuring a deal. Structures range from all-cash at close to earnouts and seller financing, with earnouts used when founders want to stay involved and share in upside, and all-cash used when founders want a clean exit.
Best Quotes
“First deal was six years ago, 2018. It was deploybot.com.”
“The initial two acquisitions were 100% my own cash, and then we actually started to tap into financing sources.”
“SaaS group is very profitable. We strive to run profitable businesses. We love the bootstrapping DNA, being super frugal, being profitable but still growing a little bit.”
“That was about 25,000,000.”
“It also always keeps you on your toes, I think. So, in single digit percentage.”
“We're not a fund. We're a company. Our big role model is Constellation Software in Canada, public company.”
“If someone sells a business to SaaS group, we intend to run this business indefinitely. We wanna preserve the legacy of the founder.”
“We always buy 100%. There are some structures where we can keep an upside for the founder, but that's then done through a bonus or an out structure and not through a 40/60 share or something like that.”
“So, yeah, Rewardful probably is the fastest growing ever.”
“We always strive for profit margin somewhere 20 to 30%.”
What Happened Next
This interview was recorded in June 2024 and reflects the state of SaaS Group at that point in time, including 20 portfolio companies, $60M in ARR, 300 employees, and a freshly closed $25M equity round. The figures Tim Schumacher shared are a historical snapshot and may not reflect the company's current scale or portfolio composition. For the latest numbers and portfolio updates, visit the SaaS Group company profile on getLatka.
View SaaS Group’s current profile and metricsFull Transcript
Chapters
- 0:00Introduction and SaaS Group Overview
- 1:13First Acquisition: DeployBot in 2018
- 1:52Funding the First Deals with Personal Capital
- 3:20Three Sources of Financing: Debt, Cash Flow, and Equity
- 4:21The $25M Equity Round and Investor Profile
- 7:37Acquiring Companies Out of Bankruptcy: Crosstalent and Zenloop
- 12:25Dash This Acquisition and Post-Acquisition Improvements
- 14:51Deal Structure: Earnouts, All-Cash, and Seller Financing
- 17:50Typical Acquisition Multiples: 2x to 4x ARR
- 18:46Always Buying 100% and the Evergreen Model
- 19:44Fastest Growing Portfolio Companies
- 22:22Balance Sheet Investing and Use of Debt
- 23:31Famous Five: Books, Sleep, and Life Lessons
- 24:27Closing Summary
Introduction and SaaS Group Overview
Nathan Latka
00:00Guys, Tim Schumacher with SAS Group did his first deal six years ago in 2018. Used a 100% of his own cash to buy Deploy Bot and a second acquisition. Now uses debt financing and also just did a $25,000,000 equity round earlier this year, which he sold single digit percent of the parent company SaaS Group. Again, all the companies that he's purchased, 20 so far today, do $60,000,000 of ARR and sell up to over 300 people. He's
00:22empowering those leaders to build those businesses. The cash flow flows back up to the parent company. That's how they do new deals. Some folks, if you wanna learn about the companies they buy, you can go listen to our episodes with Dash This or User Snap or check out some of those companies that you might use in your own business like Rewardful for your affiliates. Hey, folks. My guest today is Tim Schumacher. He's a German investor and
00:39entrepreneur with a focus on SaaS, ad tech, and more recently, climate tech. He founded and led multiple companies like sito.com, ecosia.org, ao how do you say that, Tim? Eyo? Eyeio..com? Io. Io.
Tim Schumacher
00:51>> But people always ask that io.
Nathan Latka
00:53Io.com.
Tim Schumacher
00:54>> Play on i/oinput output. So yeah.
Nathan Latka
00:57Oh, got it. Got it. Io.com. Worldfund.vc. And, also, I imagine the way most of you guys know him is SAS Group. They're buying up SAS companies, 1 to $10,000,000 in revenue. We're gonna jump into all of today. Tim, you're ready to take us to top?
Tim Schumacher
01:11>> Yeah. I am. Thanks for having me.
First Acquisition: DeployBot in 2018
Nathan Latka
01:13You bet. Let's put SaaS Group in perspective. I just want a timeline to start, and then we'll dive into sort of what you're doing actively today. When did you guys close your first deal? What year?
Tim Schumacher
01:23>> First deal was six years ago, 2018. It was deploybot.com.
Nathan Latka
01:28Deploy Bot dot com. Okay. And one of the questions, one of the questions that I always get you know, there's founders that exit. They go, what am I gonna do with my life? And a lot of them wanna go into the sort of, like, venture studio. Maybe they wanna launch their own search fund. They or they wanna do sort of what you're doing. Take me back to the day you signed the DocuSign for Deploy Bot. Did
01:45you already have the money lined up? Or you're like, okay. Gotta get the contract signed, then go raise the money. I gotta make all these pieces fall in place. What were you thinking?
Funding the First Deals with Personal Capital
Tim Schumacher
01:52>> No. I had the money lined up. I had two exits before. C.com, we exited. Io, which is the company behind the world's largest ad blockers, ad blocker and ad blocker plus. That's how we know no one knows io, but everybody knows ad blocker and Adblock Plus. That one had a lot of dividend exits, and so that's that was the money I took for. And I was like, hey. I'm actually not not the best person from zero
02:14>> to one, so starting a business, MVP, all of that. They're much better people than me, but I'm pretty good from one to 10, so scaling a business. And that was the original idea from SaaS Group. And so, yeah, had the money lined up, and, it's actually been been like this for the day. Like, we never we never start we never buy a business where we don't have the funds. That would be a search fund or be
02:34>> something where people have to go out to get funding, but we always have the money ready in the bank.
Nathan Latka
02:39So, Tim, reading between the lines there, you mentioned the dividends from your prior companies. Did you use a 100% of your own capital for Deploy Bot in 2018?
Tim Schumacher
02:45>> Yeah. The initial two acquisitions were 100% my own cash, and then we actually started to tap into financing sources, but it was always super important for us to have the financing lined up before the deal, because you don't wanna have a deal jeopardize, or the financing jeopardize a deal. It just makes you look like a fool.
Nathan Latka
03:05A 100. Yeah. I mean, you're obviously in a great position. You've had operational success that translated into cash success. You're reinvesting that cash in your first deal. Your first deal is a 100% yourself. Walk me through what I mean when you say you lined up financing sources in 2020.
Three Sources of Financing: Debt, Cash Flow, and Equity
Tim Schumacher
03:20>> So SaaS Group basically has two sources or three sources of financing now. First one was debt. We actually struck some favorable deals with debt providers who've basically given us a card launch or a line of credit, to to tap into, acquisitions as long as they're in a certain area, so SaaS and some certain metrics, then then we basically just need to issue a capital call. So they don't need to be approved. That's number one. Number two
03:47>> is operating cash flow. SaaS group is very profitable. We strive to run profitable businesses. We love the bootstrapping DNA, being super frugal, being profitable but still growing a little bit. That's kind of what most companies are like at SaaS Group. There is a cash inflow that piles up. We use that for other acquisition. And then last but not least, we did do an equity round earlier this year, where we got a bunch of, external funding. That
04:14>> was actually first first external equity round we did, and that, of course, also helps strengthen the balance sheet.
The $25M Equity Round and Investor Profile
Nathan Latka
04:21Mhmm. What was that round size?
Tim Schumacher
04:24>> That was about 25,000,000.
Nathan Latka
04:27And and and and why go that route? You're obviously individually wealthy yourself. Were these, like, really strategic people that you wanted aligned with SAS Group, or why do the deal?
Tim Schumacher
04:35>> Yeah. Yeah. Exactly that. So we, I, I can't name them, but they're, a bunch of super successful entrepreneurs who are really they're all in the SaaS field. They're super smart people. Also, I always love people partner partnering with people who are a few years advanced. So for example, there's one guy who does a roll up not in a competing space, but software. And he's just kind of this three, four years ahead of us, in terms of
05:00>> with 300 people, he's like a thousand people. Revenue is also threefold. It's like he he went through all the stuff we we we still have to go through. That's the type of people we really wanna align ourselves with. And and yeah. So it was a small dilution, but just getting great people on board has always helped.
Nathan Latka
05:18Mhmm. What is small
Tim Schumacher
05:19>> keeps you on your toes. It it also always keeps you on your toes, I think. So, in in single single digit percentage.
Nathan Latka
05:27Okay. And and oh, people might be hearing you say, okay. We sold single digit percentage for 25,000,000, but they might be thinking of what? He's got 20 companies. Can you explain sort of GP, LP structure, like, that works? You basically you sold the GP state, it sounds like.
Tim Schumacher
05:38>> Yeah. No. We're not a fund. We're not a fund. We're a company. Our our big our big role model is Constellation Software in in Canada, public company. We're just a company like any other company in Evergreen. Yes, we we have a few small investors, but first and foremost, yeah, we're just kind of a a going concern. Also, don't flip our companies. I think it's really important. If someone sells a business to SaaS group, we intend to
06:07>> run this business indefinitely. We wanna preserve the legacy of the founder. Wanna preserve the name, preserve what made the company strong. Sure, we're going to improve on a lot of things where we think there's some holes to fill, but we really cherish those individual small companies which are filling a niche which most SaaS founders provide, and we don't intend to sell the company. So also there is no fund lifetime of, hey, within seven to ten years,
06:35>> we have to sell the companies again, those sorts of things. We're just happy keeping the companies.
Nathan Latka
06:40Mark Leonard is also one of my heroes, and his letters are legendary. Wish he did more interviews, but we only have the letters for now. At least there's twenty years of them, so we have a lot of letters to read. True. But when you just to repeat all that back to you, you effectively have, like, SaaS Group Inc. It started off with a 100% of your own money for the first two acquisitions. You then got a
06:59line of basically, a credit line against that, and then you brought in $25,000,000. It it sounds like this was actually sort of a bunch of LPs that you respect sort of a party round you put together. This wasn't some big fund that by themselves stroked a $25,000,000 check.
Tim Schumacher
07:13>> I know. There was there was one lead, but Okay. There were mainly a lot of individuals.
Nathan Latka
07:18Okay. And then you mentioned the last source of financing, is yeah. You mentioned the last source of founding funding, which is the best source of funding, is obviously your own profits. You mentioned the company's profitable. You recently mentioned on another episode, you had about 20 businesses doing about 60,000,000, six year of ARR, 300 people total. Are those all accurate?
Acquiring Companies Out of Bankruptcy: Crosstalent and Zenloop
Tim Schumacher
07:37>> Yeah. That's still accurate.
Nathan Latka
07:39And so in 2023, you mentioned profitability. How much sort of operating cash flow flowed back up to SaaS group, the parent code from all the companies? Or a percentage, I think, the number.
Tim Schumacher
07:51>> Yeah. It's it's complicated because, like, it's obviously, there are some of that is always trapped trapped in subsidiaries and everything, but we we we always strive for profit margin somewhere 20 to 30%.
Nathan Latka
08:0220 to 30%. Do you when you're looking at deals to go buy, do you also wanna see 30% profitability from any founders listening to you that might wanna sell to SaaS group?
Tim Schumacher
08:11>> No. We we wanna that's a great question, but it's we wanna see the potential to get there, but it doesn't have to be there on day one. So we've bought some super profitable business, some businesses where there's basically just one founder doing all the work with a 95% profit margin, we've seen those. But we've also seen insanely unprofitable businesses, two even which we bought out of bankruptcy, which we then restructured and obviously everything in between. But
08:41>> yeah. No. As as long as there's a decent ARR and it's a great product, I think by now we can we can live with anything.
Nathan Latka
08:48Mhmm. Which two did you buy out bankruptcy, and how does that work?
Tim Schumacher
08:51>> Cross Talon out of French bankruptcy and Zenloop out of German bankruptcy. And, well, it's it usually works if there's an administrator in in The US. It's chapter 11 in Germany, France, other European countries have similar types. And then there's an administrator and that person is charged for selling off the assets. And then you just negotiate it with that person, not with the founder. It's obviously a very different style, a lot more formalities, but it's great because
09:22>> you know you preserve a company, a team, it has its own challenges but it's a worthwhile exercise and in both cases it worked really well. We have in in one case, the founder still operating it across the law. In the other case, we found a new management. And and in both cases, the companies are super strong now. They're profitable. They're growing again. And they're building on the product. And they they just they just were mismanaged before
09:49>> and they were they were overspending.
Nathan Latka
09:52In January 2020 yeah. In January 2023, the CEO of Zenloop when when being quoted about the liquidation process said, quote, we were not able to get the required approval in a short amount of time. Unfortunately, that can happen with a large group of more than 40 more than 40 shareholders. So when you a couple quick questions here. I know Dirk leads your originations, but do you have any databases you look for to get notified when things
10:15go into bankruptcy like this, or is it really just you and Dirk picking up the phones, calling people?
Tim Schumacher
10:20>> Yeah. We're not we're not sophisticated yet when it comes to monitoring bankruptcy. Also, have to, like, we have to admit bankruptcies are pretty rare in SaaS because, if you manage the SaaS well, it's almost impossible to get it into bankruptcy. Usually only happens if there's a VC pouring in too much money, founders go crazy, the the the environment tanks. That's exactly what happened in those two cases. And, yeah, the founder said that he couldn't secure the
10:46>> funding, but also fact is he just spent a little too much. And so, that is essentially what then happens. But other than that, it's it's very rare to see SaaS companies go bankrupt. Different to ecommerce companies, for example. It's much easier to get an ecommerce company bankrupt than a a SaaS company.
Nathan Latka
11:02Hey, folks. If we haven't met yet, my name is Nathan Latkov. I launched and sold my first software company back in 2015 and went on to write a book about it, which you guys made a Wall Street Journal bestseller purchasing over 30,000 copies. Thank you so much for that. After the book, I launched this show and one went on to create founderpath.com. I raised a large fund to do non dilutive deals with b to b software
11:27founders. So far, we've invested in over 400 software founders totaling a $150,000,000. Here in 2024, we're doing three to four new deals per week. So if you're looking for capital and don't wanna give up equity, go sign up at founderpath.com for free to get your offer. Alright. Let's jump into the interview. So Zen Loop, just say on that for the sake of an example, I think it's education for the audience. You know, not to put in
11:51€4,800,000 in 2019. Signal has put in 6.1 in 2020, so about 10,000,000 raise of that company. Just to be clear, when you go in this is going through bankruptcy. All the equity gets wiped out. Right?
Tim Schumacher
12:01>> Yeah. And they only got a dime of the dollar.
Nathan Latka
12:05Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So they don't like, SaaS Group now owns Zenloop. But if you look at Zenloop's sort of subsidiary cap table, it says a 100% owned by SaaS Group. You don't have all the old people still having a small slug on there or something, do you?
Tim Schumacher
12:23>> Yeah. Yeah. Pretty much.
Dash This Acquisition and Post-Acquisition Improvements
Nathan Latka
12:25Okay. Okay. Alright. So that's the bankruptcy route. Others other deals you've done, some of them actually, you know, we've had on the show. So I remember we had dashed this on back in 2022, 2023. Those
Tim Schumacher
12:36>> phones Okay. Were Cool.
Nathan Latka
12:37Yeah. They were really proud of the fact that their paid marketing was working. They were spending about $50,000 a month on paid. What did you see when you looked at that business, and why'd you end up doing the deal?
Tim Schumacher
12:48>> Well, it's a great business. First of all, we like online marketing as a category. We we know it well. We're all in the space, and we we love to be comfortable with our own category. We love the founder team, or the the team that runs it is actually not the original founder, anymore, but Antoine, CEO, his team. They're great. Really, really doing well. They also have a a nice product, low churn, really serving a nice niche
13:11>> with with agencies. But, you know, and that that's a great example where where SAS Group was adding a lot of value. Yeah. They were doing a lot of paid marketing, but also, we could add a ton of value when we came in. One of the first things were we slashed their Google paid accounts in half. So we basically slashed their budget in in half, but we doubled the output. So essentially, we've forex the lead gen just
13:34>> on that Google Google paid account, and and that's exactly some of those those value adds we bring at SaaS, but we have some super specialized, super smart people for different disciplines, in this case, pay per click, And we were able to help and make a strong business. We love Dash. This is a strong business, but we make it make it even stronger.
Nathan Latka
13:52Mhmm. Yeah. They said when they came on, again, was 01/26/2022, that they were spending $440 on CAC to get a customer that would pay on average a $135 a month. So they had about a five month payback. And you're saying one of the values you brought is Yeah. You saw opportunity to basically make those economics, you know, a 100% better, cut the cost in half.
Tim Schumacher
14:09>> Yeah. Now it's two and a half months payback. Yeah.
Nathan Latka
14:12That's great. They had 2,600 customers. You mentioned churn, though. I mean, they did tell me, I remember reviewing the notes, they said they had 36% gross annual logo churn. I mean, most I would imagine most people listening are going, man, if I've got churn at 36%, no acquirer is gonna wanna wanna buy me.
Tim Schumacher
14:28>> Well, it all I mean, all of that gets factored into the price, but we've seen businesses with more churn than that. It it also depends a lot on kinda the nature of the business. And there are some businesses which just by design have more churn because they're more seasonal, or agencies go out of business and stuff. Sure. It's not ideal, and and that gets factors into the price, but this is still growing, and, it's a it's
Deal Structure: Earnouts, All-Cash, and Seller Financing
Tim Schumacher
14:51>> a great business. So then there's no reason to do something, even if there's some churn to not Yeah.
Nathan Latka
14:56You're you guys are not scared of churn. I mean, is consistent in your portfolio. Florian came on the show at UserSnap back in 04/22/2018, and they were also seeing about 26% gross annual churn. So you guys clearly have no problem with churn, especially if you see room to improve.
Tim Schumacher
15:12>> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. No churn can be improved. And in some cases, also basically, I mean, that logo churn is one thing, but then the question is what's the what's the dollar churn and and especially with smart upselling, you can
15:26>> actually yeah.
Nathan Latka
15:28Yeah. Let's sort of more let's sort of morph before our last five minutes. We've talked about sort of what you look for, how your where your funding sources are. We've talked a little bit about the deal, but let's talk about one, what the deal typically looks like in terms of cash upfront versus earn out. Do you have a typical structure you use? And then also what your playbook looks like post acquisition, what do those things look
15:45like?
Tim Schumacher
15:46>> Yeah. Sure. So great question. It really depends on the founder. I mean, it depends. And I wanna first and foremost, I wanna know the real reason on why a founder is selling. So is is he burned out? Is there a founder conflict? Is it just to take some chips off the table? Does he or she wanna continue? All those sorts of things, the real kind of life reason behind it. And that then actually governs the earnout.
16:10>> And we had we had deals where it's basically, here are the keys. We're out in four weeks. We literally had that. But we also had cases
Nathan Latka
16:18where was that valuation?
Tim Schumacher
16:19>> Was that like a one x?
16:21>> No. No. No. It wasn't wasn't that bad. It was in this case, for example, there was low logo churn. It was a low complexity software. We just put some other guy on this continued in maintenance mode before we we let the grow the product grow again. So that's doable, but we also have founders who are still with us three three years after the deal and anything in between. And then, of course, the if if the founders
16:43>> wanna commit to this and they they also wanna commit to their business plan, then an earn out is really great because it shares risk. We can pay more. But it's also kind of this put your money where your mouth is towards the founders, and it's it's it's generally the more attractive deal because we're it puts us on the same page. But we can also do all cash deals. It really depends on a lot of factors. No
17:03>> deal is really unique. There's other components like seller financing. So for example, it could be guaranteed payment, but it comes next year or two years after. And for us, of course, we're saving on interest rates so so we can pay a little bit more. So every deal has lots of components, different complexities, and sure we we have different building blocks, but we can we can work with all of that. It's important that the founder is happy
17:25>> with it at the end of the day, and that's that's what we're trying to strive for.
Nathan Latka
17:31When you look at the deals you've done over the past, call it, twelve to eighteen months, I mean, is it fair to say that most evaluations you're looking at, if you just look at the all cash portion upfront is typically between sort of the two and four x? Or, I mean, others like, you know, the bigger players, obviously, like Vistas of the world. I mean, they they overspend on a bunch of deals and then they hope
17:46they can make it work and they're spending, you know, eight, nine x, you know, ARR sometimes.
Typical Acquisition Multiples: 2x to 4x ARR
Tim Schumacher
17:50>> Yeah. Eight or nine x is very rare. I think we did this one on a very small deal which had strategic importance and was growing very fast. But usually, yeah, two two to four is pretty accurate. Mhmm. There's some a little lower than that. There's some a little higher, but majority is really at the two to four.
Nathan Latka
18:06Yep. And do you ever buy let's say you're buying Nathan Latka Inc. You buy the company and I say, but I love Nathan Latka Inc, Tim, but I also wanna work with you. How about you guys just buy 40% and I keep 60%? Would you do that a deal like that or do you always want majority?
Tim Schumacher
18:19>> We don't. We we always do a 100%. So we are we are not that's the core difference. Like, if you would get go to a private equity company, they would take a significant minority or a majority, and then they would flip the company three years later after they've done hopefully some improvements. And their money comes from from the improvements plus the the leverage of the deal structure. In our case because we want to operate it forever
Always Buying 100% and the Evergreen Model
Tim Schumacher
18:46>> there's no there's no resell to sell so it doesn't make sense to to only do a a portion So we always buy a 100%. There are some structures where we can keep an upside for the founder, but that's then done through a bonus or an out structure and not through a a $40.60 share or something like that. We can't
Nathan Latka
19:03do that. So that's how you do the deal, you close the deal and then obviously you wanna grow the business. Which of your companies have grown the fastest after you acquired it in terms of revenue?
Tim Schumacher
19:12>> So Scraper API has been great. The scraping service, it's a really great product. Rewardful.com is great. It's a it's a super simple affiliate program management tool for for companies operating on Stripe and Paddle. So, yeah, rewardful probably is the the fastest growing ever. Prerender is great. It's a prerendering software. A bunch of them have really kind of grown four or five x since we've acquired them in the last three years or something. So we've also had
Fastest Growing Portfolio Companies
Tim Schumacher
19:44>> some which are flat. I think that's the nature of the game. It always depends on kind of you you you also get what you pay for. If we're buying a flat business is, like, usually, yeah, we can improve it a little bit, but we also know magicians, but then that's reflected in the price. But we always try our best, I think, with every company.
Nathan Latka
20:00You mentioned on another show the fastest growing company went from 2,000,000 to 10,000,000 after you bought it. Was that rewardful?
Tim Schumacher
20:07>> No. It really was one of the other two. Rewardful isn't at Okay. Isn't at ten. I'm very impressed how you you have all your numbers in there. I like It's really impressive. You know, you you interview them all, but then you put the strings together. It's like that's it's amazing, Nathan.
Nathan Latka
20:24Alright. Thanks, Tim. I appreciate that. No. The data is, I think, valuable to the audience, and I appreciate you being open and transparent. So I guess as we as we move towards sort of wrapping up, you know, today when you're doing deals, let's say it's a $10,000,000 deal. What are you typically I mean, using the debt line that you have raised, I mean, you typically putting in, like, $50.50 your own equity plus debt, or what ratios
20:40can can you do with that line?
Tim Schumacher
20:44>> We have no ratios. We basically we just whatever we have cash on the balance sheet, we use it. So we we're doing at the moment because we have tons of cash, we're just doing every deals, doing deals all 100% debt. So we're not we're not because we're not putting things into SPVs or special purpose vehicle, we're not a PE company. We're really just always always investing from our own balance sheet and in some cases it's equity
21:11>> and in some cases it's debt. But we always
21:19>> on balance sheet. Mhmm.
Nathan Latka
21:23Tim, that's useful. That's useful information. Before guys, if you wanna check out SaaS, you can go to saas.group. But, Tim, before we wrap up with the famous five, anywhere else, people can find you online if they wanna connect?
Tim Schumacher
21:36>> Yeah. SaaS group is a good start. My email as well, tim at sas group, super easy. LinkedIn, of course. And, yeah, that's pretty much it.
21:45>> Is Tim on that note?
Nathan Latka
21:46Let's wrap up famous five, rapid fire. Number one favorite business book.
Tim Schumacher
21:51>> I'm reading Humanocracy at the moment. I wouldn't say it's favorite yet, but I'm halfway through, and it really reminds me of the structures we're using at SAS Group about a a non bureaucratic autonomous way of for large companies to run. So I think it's gonna be one of my favorites.
Nathan Latka
22:09Number two, besides a portfolio company, is there a CEO you're following or studying today?
Tim Schumacher
22:15>> I think you mentioned the one Mark Mark Glennett. I think it's it's one for SaaS Group, which I'm really following.
Balance Sheet Investing and Use of Debt
Nathan Latka
22:22Number three, besides your own portfolio company, what's an online tool that you spend just a lot of money on every month?
Tim Schumacher
22:29>> An online tool we spend a lot of money on.
22:34>> Let me see.
22:38>> Well, I mean, the usual hosting suspects,
22:42>> Gmail the whole the whole Google Suite. I mean, we run on Google and and that it's costing more and more, but it's let's admit it. It's also a great tool.
22:50>> So Yep.
Nathan Latka
22:51Number four, how many hours of sleep do you get every night?
Tim Schumacher
22:53>> I sleep eight to nine hours. I need a lot of sleep, and I think healthy and good sleep is really important to be productive the rest of the day.
Nathan Latka
23:02Certainly agree. And what's your situation to married single kids?
Tim Schumacher
23:06>> Yeah. I have a family.
Nathan Latka
23:08Married. Okay. How many kids you got running around? Are they young or they you're an empty nester?
Tim Schumacher
23:12>> I have no. I have two kids, two sons running around.
Nathan Latka
23:16That's great. And how old are you?
Tim Schumacher
23:18>> They are 11 and 16.
23:23>> Oh.
Nathan Latka
23:28Yeah, Tim. Your age.
Famous Five: Books, Sleep, and Life Lessons
Tim Schumacher
23:31>> Me. I have the kids. Me. I'm I'm 47.
Nathan Latka
23:34I know. I I ask I ask aggressive questions, but I think that's a step too far asking your kids'ages, you know, but you're 47.
Tim Schumacher
23:41>> I'm 47.
Nathan Latka
23:47Alright. Last
Tim Schumacher
23:48>> question. And and I have an unstable network connection as what Zoom is telling here. So I I should get upgraded to to some, I don't know, some fiber or something.
Nathan Latka
23:57No. You're you're good. Last question here. Something you wish you knew back when you were 20 years old.
Tim Schumacher
24:05>> 20 years old.
24:08>> That's that's a good question. I think I should've I should've spent one one more year partying at university. I was finished too quick, started my whole first company too quick. And so in retrospect, maybe just adding one more year just for fun would not have been a bad thing.
Closing Summary
Nathan Latka
24:27Guys, Tim Schumacher with SaaS Group did his first deal six years ago in 2018. Used a 100% of his own cash to buy Deploy Bot and a second acquisition. Now uses debt financing and also just did a $25,000,000 equity round earlier this year, which he sold single digit percent of the parent company SaaS Group. Again, all the companies that he's purchased, 20 so far today, do $60,000,000 of ARR and some up to over 300 people. He's
24:49empowering those leaders to build those businesses. The cash flow flows back up to the parent company. That's how they do new deals. Some folks, if you wanna learn about the companies they buy, can go listen to our episodes with Dash This or User Snap or check out some of those companies that you might use in your own business like Rewardful for your affiliates. Tim, thanks for taking us to the top.
Tim Schumacher
25:05>> Thank you for having me.