How Todd Saunders Built a $30M Vertical SaaS in Flooring (and Sold It) | Verticals Ep 5 скачать в хорошем качестве

How Todd Saunders Built a $30M Vertical SaaS in Flooring (and Sold It) | Verticals Ep 5

A VC and a Founder intellectually spar on Vertical Tech & AI, covering the latest news, unpacking in-depth business strategies, and interviewing world-class leaders in the space. New episodes drop every Wednesday. In this episode, Luke Sophinos and Nic Poulos sit down with Todd Saunders, Founder & CEO of Broadloom (acquired by Syncly), to dig into how he built and sold a $30M ARR vertical SaaS company in the flooring industry, and the unconventional playbooks that made it possible. We cover: • Going from Google to niche SMB software, why “boring” is the new billion-dollar opportunity • The explosive pivot: ad-tech collapse → vertical SaaS focus → COVID demand boom • How community becomes a moat: conferences, Facebook groups, and content-led GTM • The Broadloom monopoly playbook: roll-ups, channel partners, and owning distribution • Transactional revenue vs SaaS revenue, and what PE is really willing to pay for • The truth about exits: cap tables, PE math, runway, and why most vertical outcomes look nothing like TechCrunch If you’re building in SaaS, AI, or a service-based business in an “unsexy” industry, this one’s for you. Subscribe for more conversations with the founders and investors shaping the future of Vertical SaaS. Time stamps: 00:00 - The Vertical Pulse: Emerging vs hidden industries 03:12 - Dutchie & Slice: When a “sub-vertical” becomes a market 08:01 - Moldco deep dive: Can a niche really be venture scale? 12:45 - Handoff AI: AI workforce for residential contractors 16:58 - Long-context inference & the future of LLMs 21:17 - Are we in an AI infrastructure bubble? 26:33 - Introducing this week’s titan: Todd Saunders 28:10 - From Google to Vertical SaaS in flooring 33:14 - The 10M → 3M → 12M pivot and the COVID tailwind 38:49 - Content-led + community-led GTM: FloorCon, Facebook groups & brand 44:22 - How to sell to SMBs: replace pen & paper and answer the phone 48:57 - Turning distribution into dollars: flooring brands, transactions & margins 53:51 - Cap tables, fundraising, and why PE is your likely exit 59:36 - The real moat in vertical SaaS: trust, loyalty & domain obsession 1:04:51 - What founders are getting wrong about AI wedges 1:09:27 - Where the next wave of vertical SaaS opportunities will come from 1:12:58 - Closing thoughts & what’s coming next week on VERTICALS