Pete Martin is the Founder and CEO of Vestara Advisors and the author of Scale Up Faster. Vestara Advisors specializes in helping tech and B2B service companies scale strategically and maximize valuation. A serial entrepreneur and expert advisor, Pete has closed over $1 billion in software deals and founded six companies, selling four of them, including one to KPMG. His book distills proven strategies from the fastest-growing bootstrapped companies into practical frameworks for scaling quickly without outside funding.
Here’s a Glimpse of What You’ll Hear:
- [2:18] Pete Martin reflects on his unique childhood business ventures
- [7:20] How Pete managed to get the job at IBM
- [8:45] Vision behind founding EntryPoint Consulting
- [12:24] Creating and implementing a company manifesto to define culture
- [14:25] Benefits of building recurring revenue streams to manage cash flow
- [16:12] Why Pete decided it was time to sell EntryPoint Consulting
- [20:29] How selling the company influenced Pete’s approach to advising other companies
- [24:11] Inspiration behind writing Scale Up Faster
- [28:34] Surprising insights on founder profiles, focus, and marketing channel mastery
- [39:54] Impact of company culture on long-term business success
In this episode…
Many business owners dream of scaling quickly, but they face unpredictable revenue, cultural misalignment, and unclear exit strategy. Without clarity on their company’s true value drivers, they risk underpricing their business or losing strategic control. What if there were a way to grow faster, build a stronger culture, and sell for a premium without relying on external funding?
Pete Martin, a serial entrepreneur and author of Scale Up Faster, shares his research from hundreds of high-growth, bootstrapped companies to reveal what works — and what doesn’t — when scaling. Drawing from interviews with nearly 100 founders who doubled revenues year after year, Pete reveals their counterintuitive strategies — like mastering a single marketing channel, building recurring revenue, and hiring solely for cultural and value alignment. He also offers a framework for preparing a business for sale, crafting a compelling growth narrative, and cultivating relationships with potential buyers well in advance of the exit.
Tune in to this episode of the Smart Business Revolution Podcast as John Corcoran interviews Pete Martin, Founder and CEO of Vestara Advisors, about scaling businesses without outside funding. Pete discusses the importance of culture, his process for building recurring revenue, and how he achieved a 12x EBITDA sale. He also shares insights from his book, founder traits that drive growth, and the power of focused marketing channels.
Resources mentioned in this episode:
- John Corcoran on LinkedIn
- Rise25
- Pete Martin on LinkedIn
- Vestara Advisors
- Votem Corp.
- Scale Up Faster: The Secrets of the World’s Quickest-Growing Bootstrapped Companies by Pete Martin
Special Mention(s):
Related episode(s):
Quotable Moments:
- “They’re not buying your history; they’re buying the collective future you can create together.”
- “If you pick one channel and master it, you can grow far faster than spreading thin.”
- “Culture isn’t fluff; it’s a filter to attract the right people and repel the wrong ones.”
- “Bootstrapped companies control their own destiny and avoid the traps of outside capital.”
- “Every founder I spoke to had a chip on their shoulder, and they leaned into it for fuel.”
Action Steps:
- Define your culture in vivid detail: Document the traits, values, and partner qualities your company lives by. This helps attract top talent and repel poor fits, strengthening long-term performance.
- Master one marketing channel: Rather than diluting efforts across multiple avenues, focus on perfecting a single, high-performing channel for predictable, scalable growth.
- Build recurring revenue streams: Reduce cash flow volatility by developing ongoing services or subscriptions, which also increase valuation multiples.
- Identify ideal buyers early: Establish relationships with strategic acquirers years before selling, so trust and alignment are already in place when you’re ready.
- Craft a compelling buyer narrative: Position your company as the missing piece that enables the acquirer’s growth goals, making valuation a strategic discussion rather than a negotiation over multiples.
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Episode Transcript
Intro: 00:00
Today we’re talking about how to scale up faster, how to take your company and grow it at a faster pace. My guest today is Pete Martin. He is the author of a book called Scale Up Faster, and we are going to be telling you all about him in a second, so stay tuned.
John Corcoran: 00:17
Welcome to the Smart Business Revolution Podcast, where we feature top entrepreneurs, business leaders, and thought leaders and ask them how they built key relationships to get where they are today. Now let’s get started with the show.
John Corcoran: 00:34
All right. Welcome, everyone. John Corcoran here. I’m the host of this show. And you know, every week we have smart CEOs, founders and entrepreneurs and even authors. And we’ve had companies like Netflix and Grubhub, Redfin, Gusto, Kinkos, YPO, EO, Activision Blizzard. Check out the archives. Lots of great episodes for you to check out. And before we get into this interview, this episode is brought to you by Rise25. At Rise25, we help businesses to give to and connect to their dream relationships and partnerships. How do we do that? We do that by helping you to run your podcast. We are the easy button for any company to launch and run a podcast.
We do three things: strategy, accountability, and full execution. And we even invented the platform that those out there who know are calling the Wix of B2B podcasting. It’s our platform Podcast Copilot. So to learn more about it, go to our website Rise25.com. Or you can email our team at [email protected].
All right. My guest here today is Pete Martin. And first quick shout out to Nicole McKenzie of Momentum Accounting. My friend recommended today’s guest. And Pete is a serial entrepreneur. He’s an expert advisor. He’s the author of Scale Up Faster, began his career at IBM and SAP, and has personally closed over $1 billion in software deals. That’s insane with all kinds of large companies. And he later founded six companies across a number of different industries and sold four of them, including one of them to KPMG. So we’re going to hear all about that as well. But I always like to start by talking with my guests a little bit about what they were like as a kid. And Pete, we were chatting beforehand. You said you did paper routes, you did cutco knives, and you did something I’ve not heard of before. I’ve heard lots of selling gum in school, heard lots of selling pot in school, have not heard about selling fire extinguishers. How did you get into selling fire extinguishers?
Pete Martin: 02:18
Yeah, I’ll preface that by saying I’m an Eagle Scout from Boy Scouts, and your parents have to write a letter to, you know, the district or whatever. And the essence of my mom’s letter was, this guy is either going to be the president of us or he’s going to be in jail. We’re not sure which. So I was your.
John Corcoran: 02:35
Mom wrote that. Jesus.
Pete Martin: 02:37
Yeah, yeah, I know, so what.
John Corcoran: 02:39
What did you do to mom that made her seem?
Pete Martin: 02:41
Like that? But she just knew I was a handful, and so. So, yeah, I started a paper route when I was nine years old. I had a checking account when I was ten years old, sold Cutco knives, which was great for a while, and I don’t even remember how I got connected with this company that sold halon fire extinguishers. And so, you know, if you have a fire extinguisher in your house and you’ve got a fire on the stove, if you sprayed that fire extinguisher on the stove, you just literally have destroyed your stove. So halon, which is also the stuff they use in data centers, will literally suck all the oxygen out and it just will get rid of a fire like that. It’s actually really pretty cool.
John Corcoran: 03:20
And maybe it does, like pull out, pull air rather than pushing out.
Pete Martin: 03:25
But the halon literally sucks the oxygen out and it will snuff a fire like that. And maybe I was just a pyro. And this was my way of kind of doing lots of demos, I don’t know. But it was a very, very interesting opportunity to do door to door selling. And the one amazing experience I had was I was selling to some folks in their 80s and, you know, and we sold smoke detectors and that kind of stuff too. But, you know, after I did the demo and everything else, they’re like, you know, if we had a fire in our house, you know, we’re both. We’re both ready to die. It’s quite all right. I don’t think we’re going to die. You know, that was an objection. I had no idea how to handle it. So I just. I got out of there, so.
John Corcoran: 04:06
Wow. That’s what it’s like. Okay. All right. Maybe you need your life to be saved.
Pete Martin: 04:11
All right? Exactly.
John Corcoran: 04:13
So literally, like, this is your, like, 18 year old kid going door to door with knives and fire extinguishers, knocking on doors, selling these crazy items.
Pete Martin: 04:24
So that was 16. That was 16 when I sold. 18, 17 when I sold halon fire extinguishers. And then my sister was funny because she’s like, you know, oh my God. Because she would always, you know, the family always buys that thing that you’re selling, right? And so the next thing I did was then I sold and leased cars for a couple of years, which you did not buy , unfortunately, from me. But, you know, it was a classic 18 year old snot nosed kid who thought he knew everything about business and was selling or leasing cars in the early 80s before anybody really was doing leasing cars in a significant way. And that was really, really hard.
John Corcoran: 05:04
But that doesn’t seem like an easy thing. It doesn’t seem like an easy thing to do. For one, it’s capital intensive. Were you buying these vehicles and then.
Pete Martin: 05:12
No. It was yeah. It was a very interesting model. So I was a franchisee for a company out of New Jersey called Engage a Car. And so they had fleet arrangements with all of the car manufacturers. And then we would essentially finance the car through J.P. Morgan. And so we would go, I could go to you and say, you know, hey, John, what kind of car would you like? I could actually take you down to the dealership and say, pick out your car. And then instead of buying it, you would then leave it to us, and then we would underwrite that lease through J.P. Morgan. And so as a small business owner, which was my primary client, you know, you got to write that off on your taxes. And this is again, kind of before, you know, anybody was really doing this in a big way. What ended up happening was as I was taking folks down to the dealerships to buy their car. You know, the dealer, you know, I’d go to the bathroom, I’d go whatever. And the dealer was like, hey, buddy, come on over here. And, you know, don’t lease this car. I’ll sell you the car. Right. And they were literally taking business away from me. And so I ended up selling that business after almost three years to one of the other franchisees.
John Corcoran: 06:13
And it’s interesting how I can see in your career, and I’ve seen this with others, it’s almost like a progression from a very difficult sales door to door consumer. And you kind of figure out your way to like, move up the ladder to an easier or at least a higher leverage type of sale. So you’re shifting from door to door sales to business to business sales with a more compelling offer. Is that an accurate read on the situation?
Pete Martin: 06:41
Very much an accurate read. Yeah, because I because after I sold the franchise rights of my business and got out by the skin of my teeth with a small loss, I then ended up going back to college, getting my bachelor’s in MBA in three and a half years, and then went completely in the opposite direction and started working for IBM, selling big outsourcing deals and mainframes and a bunch of other stuff. So.
John Corcoran: 07:03
And how did you fit into those types of roles? You actually did it for a number of years. But sometimes when people start off doing entrepreneurship, having their own business, and then they have to go work for the man, go work for a big corporation. They struggle in those roles.
Pete Martin: 07:20
I was relating the story about the interview to somebody the other day, and I remember this so vividly, and this guy probably thought it was the biggest jerk. So I got very involved in my university. I went to Kent State University, I helped, I was a non-voting member on the board of trustees. I got to be good friends with the chairman, who was a 30 year ibmer. So he got me an interview with this branch manager from IBM, now branch manager at IBM back then. This guy was running a about $500 million, billion dollar business unit. And as part of the interview, he said, you know, something about running my business and blah, blah, blah. And again, I just think I have this kind of arrogant streak. And I said, well, you’re not really running a business. And he’s like, what are you talking about? I said, if your team doesn’t sell anything tomorrow, are you going to get paid? And he’s like, well, of course I am. I get a salary and I’m like, then you’re not running your own business, right? And the guy must have thought I was a total jerk. But after we got through that and I actually got the job offer and got the job, I actually did very, very well. And I’ll be honest.
John Corcoran: 08:18
You must have been pretty charming to get past that mark.
Pete Martin: 08:22
I think he, you know, there’s some guys in big corporations that want folks that will shake up the culture a little bit, right? You know, still have high integrity and are smart and competent, whatever. But you need to shake up the culture. And I think that’s probably what he saw in me a little bit.
John Corcoran: 08:36
So you, you did these corporate stints where you work at IBM and then SAP, and then you start this company, EntryPoint Consulting. What was the vision behind that?
Pete Martin: 08:46
So in 2001, I, along with about 25 other vice presidents and senior vice presidents, were laid off from SAP as they collapsed two organizations together. And
John Corcoran: 09:00
And when? On September 20, 2001.
Pete Martin: 09:02
This is right about the.com era. Yeah.
John Corcoran: 09:05
March of 2001.
Pete Martin: 09:06
It was pretty close to that. And I think it was June or July or something like that.
John Corcoran: 09:10
It was a bleak time.
Pete Martin: 09:11
Yeah. It was. And and you know, for me it was great because my, the two bosses ahead of me were never going to leave sap. And I’m like, I have no upward momentum whatsoever. So that’s all I’d been looking for anyway. So this was kind of a blessing in disguise and in the end I didn’t want to be the guy who kind of what they call a retread that, you know, went back and resold SAP and whatever and ended up doing that. And I had a guy that I co-founded the business with that had started scaling, went, went public, kind of went private again and, you know, was in his 60s and wanted to kind of one more bite at the apple. And so we ended up getting together and starting at the EntryPoint. So.
John Corcoran: 09:56
Okay. And so you, you said you didn’t want to be a retread.
Pete Martin: 10:01
To be that guy.
John Corcoran: 10:02
And why is that? What is that? What is that? Why was it looked so frowned upon?
Pete Martin: 10:08
I just, you know, I wanted to do something different. Completely different. I get bored really, really easily. I’m definitely an entrepreneur. I’m not an operator. I mean, I am an operator, but I wanted to do something different. And this just was a tremendous opportunity and a great way to kind of get back into the entrepreneurial space. So.
John Corcoran: 10:29
Well, for someone who didn’t want to do something, you end up doing it for 11 years.
Pete Martin: 10:34
Yes, I did.
John Corcoran: 10:36