How do you turn $200K into a $9.7M ARR SaaS company with a $100M valuation by buying IP instead of building from scratch?
Joey Gilkey is the founder of TitanX, a sales intelligence platform generating $9.7M ARR after launching in 2024. The company serves enterprise sales teams with contracts ranging from $24K to $250K annually, with its largest deals exceeding seven figures.
What makes TitanX interesting is its approach to building a moat. Instead of competing as another data provider, the company sits between data sources and execution layers, using proprietary signals and AI to improve outbound performance. The business scales through high ACV sales, expansion revenue, and strategic acquisitions.
You’ll learn:
Joey started in enterprise sales before launching multiple businesses and eventually betting his entire net worth on TitanX. After acquiring the IP in 2023, he shut down a profitable services business to focus fully on SaaS, scaling from zero to $9.7M ARR in under two years.
This episode is for SaaS founders thinking about capital allocation, high-ACV sales, and building defensible data products. It’s a practical breakdown of how to scale quickly using acquisition, pricing, and distribution strategy.
Watch this episode on YouTube: https://youtu.be/mxiCodnXo6U?si=zebVllHlOY7UlVqO
Connect with Joey: https://titanx.io/
Connect with Nathan: https://founderpath.com/
How do you grow a customer support SaaS to over 1,000 customers and $10M–$25M in ARR in one of the most crowded software categories, without trying to outspend the giants on marketing?
In this episode, Nathan sits down with Grant Stanis, CEO of TeamSupport. The company provides B2B customer support software used by more than 1,000 companies and generates between $10M and $25M in annual recurring revenue. Most customers start around $10,000 per year, but the best accounts expand significantly over time, including enterprise customers paying more than $1M annually.
Customer support software is a brutally competitive market with players like Zendesk and Freshdesk dominating search and advertising. Instead of fighting that battle, TeamSupport focused on referrals, community, and expansion revenue. The core idea is simple: turn support conversations into signals that drive retention, product feedback, and upsells.
You’ll learn:
Grant joined TeamSupport as CEO in 2024 after leading growth at several private equity-backed software companies. The business was founded in 2008 and later acquired by Level Equity in 2018. Today the focus is simple: grow profitably, expand existing customers, and build a durable SaaS business without relying on massive marketing budgets.
If you run a SaaS company selling to support teams, customer success leaders, or mid-market software companies, this episode offers a practical look at how to grow in a crowded category.
Connect with Grant: https://www.teamsupport.com/
Connect with Nathan: https://founderpath.com/
How do you rebuild a declining cybersecurity company into a $70M revenue platform with ~$25M EBITDA after buying it back for under $10M, while scaling primarily through acquisitions and debt instead of venture capital?
Gary Guseinov is the CEO of Realdefense, a consumer cybersecurity and privacy platform that generates roughly $70M in annual revenue with $20–25M in EBITDA. Gary originally founded the business in 2003 as Cyber Defender, grew it to $70M in revenue, took it public, then later bought the company back in 2017 when it had declined to about $7M ARR.
Today, Realdefense operates as a platform of security and privacy products that monetize partner user bases through software subscriptions, telemetry-driven product offers, and cross-sell expansion. The company has completed six acquisitions since the buyback and now scales growth through a capital-efficient M&A strategy instead of traditional venture capital.
What makes this business interesting is its unconventional growth model. Instead of building new SaaS products from scratch, Realdefense acquires small or declining companies, integrates them into a shared technology and billing stack, and compounds revenue by increasing LTV through cross-product distribution.
You’ll learn:
Gary started his career in direct marketing before launching his first cybersecurity company in 2003 with roughly $50K–$75K of his own capital and an initial $250K raise. After raising significant venture capital and eventually going public, he saw the risks of dilution firsthand. When the business declined under new leadership, he bought it back in 2017 and rebuilt it with a very different capital strategy focused on debt, acquisitions, and ownership preservation.
If you’re a SaaS founder thinking about capital efficiency, acquisition-driven growth, or alternative scaling strategies outside of venture capital, this episode is a masterclass in operator-led capital allocation.
Watch this episode on YouTube: https://youtu.be/ebkYMcJcpg0
Connect with Gary: https://www.realdefen.se/home/
Connect with Nathan: https://founderpath.com/
How do you build an AI SaaS company to $1M+ ARR with just a few dozen customers and raise a Series A at a 20x+ revenue multiple while competing against general-purpose AI tools?
Tal Kirschenbaum is the Co-Founder and CEO of Ledge, an AI-native financial close platform helping finance teams automate the month-end close process. Just three years after writing the first line of code, Ledge has reached $1M+ ARR with ~24–36 customers paying roughly $3K per month, while targeting 300% year-over-year growth with a team of ~35 employees.
What makes this story interesting is how narrowly the product is positioned. Instead of building a generic “AI for finance” tool, Ledge focuses on a painful operational workflow: the month-end close process for mid-market and enterprise finance teams. The pricing is not seat-based. Instead, revenue scales with operational complexity — entities, currencies, and integrations — creating a natural ACV expansion motion as customers grow.
You’ll learn:
- Why Ledge targets finance teams with 5+ people as the ideal entry point for workflow automation.
- How pricing based on business complexity (entities, currencies, channels) replaces traditional seat-based SaaS pricing.
- The math behind reaching $1M+ ARR with ~24 customers paying ~$3K per month.
- Why focusing on one painful workflow can create a stronger product moat than building a broad AI platform.
- How “glassbox AI” explainability matters for finance and accounting teams dealing with compliance and audits.
- Why selling based on workflow value — not an “AI budget” — reduces churn risk in AI SaaS.
- How enterprise credibility increases ACV over time as new customers pay higher prices than early adopters.
- What raising a Series A at a 20x+ revenue multiple says about early-stage AI SaaS valuations in 2026.
- The internal debate founders face when trading equity dilution for faster growth.
- Why some SaaS companies avoid seat-based pricing when automation actually reduces headcount needs.
Before starting Ledge, Tal led M&A transactions at Meta and worked on new products at Melio, the payments company that later sold to Xero for $2.5B. He left Melio in 2022 to build Ledge, giving up seven-figure unvested equity to pursue the opportunity he saw in financial close automation.
If you’re building vertical SaaS, AI infrastructure for finance, or enterprise workflow software, this episode is a masterclass in product focus, pricing strategy, and early enterprise traction. It’s also a rare look at how AI SaaS founders think about moats when the platform risk from large models is real.
• Watch this episode on YouTube: https://youtu.be/EGWc23BI7Zw
• Connect with Tal: https://ledge.co
• Connect with Nathan: https://founderpath.com/