ProfitWell founder Patrick Campbell on life after the acquisition

The acquisition process is, more often than not, a black box. Behind closed doors, negotiations drag on for months as founders and leaders find ways to eliminate friction and create synergy that can make the most of their shared cultures, processes and systems. It is precisely the success of this integration that often dictates the success of the overall acquisition. And today's guest knows everything it takes to make it work.

With a background in econometrics and mathematics, Patrick Campbell began his career as an Intelligence Analyst Fellow at the United States Department of Defense. Over the next several years, he served as executive director of BridgeBright Inc., worked as a strategist at Google, and led strategic initiatives for Gemvara. In 2012, looking to build something of his own, Patrick founded ProfitWell, a suite of products to help SaaS businesses grow by optimizing pricing, reducing churn, and getting accurate revenue reporting. . Over the next decade he ran ProfitWell as a seeded startup, slowly increasing its reach until earlier this year he sold the company to Paddle, a billing and payments company, as part of a $200 million deal.

"He doesn't regret the decision to sell, but to put it mildly, merging the companies wasn't exactly a walk in the park"

Patrick had no intention of handing over the keys and walking away, so the work didn't stop after closing the deal. Then came integration. Everyone shared the same vision for the future, but what at first glance seemed like a heavenly marriage brought its share of headaches - revisiting the integration plan again and again, dealing with curve balls and constantly turning off the fires, managing expectations and frustration, aligning different ways of working. Looking back, he doesn't regret his decision to sell, but to put it mildly, merging the companies wasn't exactly a walk in the park.

This isn't the first time we've heard of Patrick. In 2018, in what seems like another lifetime, we interviewed him to talk about the art and science of pricing – from raising prices to the pros and cons of freemium products. This time around, we sat down to discuss the pros, cons, and cons of selling your business, applying first principles to growing subscriptions, and creating content for your audience, not for search engines.

If you're short on time, here are some quick tips:

During an acquisition, it's easy to lose sight of your sense of purpose as a founder, especially if you're being bought out. Hang in there - that's what keeps you going. Take advantage of conferences and events to network and build trust with your peers. You never know when these relationships will come in handy. Choosing between bootstrapping and fundraising is always a personal choice. But for Patrick, the perfect time to attract investors is when you start to gain momentum. By identifying the key levers through which you can grow your business (acquisition, monetization, and retention), you can examine the data and prioritize which ones to scale. Instead of doing traditional content marketing in a crowded market with much more affluent players, ProfitWell focused on producing different, audience-based content to drive traffic.

If you like our discussion, check out other episodes of our podcast. You can follow on iTunes, Spotify, YouTube or grab the RSS feed in the reader of your choice. The following is a slightly edited transcript of the episode.

The decision to sell

Liam Geraghty: Patrick, welcome back to the show. I think you were the first in 2018.

Patrick Campbell: My God, the world hasn't changed a bit since then. Yeah, happy to be here. I mean, nothing has changed.

Liam: Nothing has changed. Yeah.

Patrick: Everything is amazing.

Liam: Not even slightly. To start, for people who may have missed your first appearance with us, could you tell us a bit about yourself and your career so far?

Patrick: Yes, absolutely. I'm Patrick Campbell, and I'm now what's called the Chief Strategy Officer here...