In this week’s episode of our Exit Stories podcast, host Kevin Mosley features Nathan Shackles, who was the sole founder and CEO of ApplicantStack before making his exit in late 2018.
ApplicantStack helps HR departments with applicant tracking and on-boarding. Shackles founded the company in 2009 after quitting his software development job. He bootstrapped the company himself and never took any outside funding while he was with the company.
Shackles didn’t plan on exiting, but after talking to some investors to see how the process worked, he received an offer he couldn’t refuse.
We’d also like to welcome our new title sponsor for Exit Stories: Dualboot Partners! You should check them out for any of your development needs—anything from a strategy session on your tech development plan, to someone to build your tech offering from soup-to-nuts and even stay on as your de-facto development team. They opened a Raleigh office this January, and we featured Dualboot Principal Todd Buelow in a recent Download Q&A.
Three highlights
— Shackles never took any capital, and started off with just his time and energy (and his personal cell phone).
— When he sold the company, ApplicantStack had 19 employees, about $2.8 million in revenue, a growth rate of about 15% a year, and EBITDA was around 30% of the company’s revenue.
— The offer Shackles ended up taking was about four times the company’s annual revenue, and he offered 10% of the sale price to all of the employees in the form of virtual stock options.
Here is the podcast, and (of course!) you should subscribe to get every episode when it’s released:
Or if you’re more of a visual learner, here is the YouTube video:
