Took a subscription software business from roughly $5M to about $212M in revenue and out through exit. Built Bluehost from a 21-person startup to about 700 people, ran a $212M P&L at about a 47% EBITDA margin, and delivered four company exits including a NASDAQ IPO.
Three decades of building software businesses, from free web hosting in 1998 to a $212M hosting platform to a consumer app today. The pattern holds: find a large market, build a product that scales, assemble the team, and compound the result.
Bluehost revenue across two tenures, COO then CEO. Joined as employee 21 and left after the NASDAQ IPO, with the P&L run to a peak 47% EBITDA margin.
Nearly thirty years of building software products, scaling platforms, and driving growth. The work started in 1996 building custom e-commerce sites while at BYU, then co-founding FreeServers in 1998 and helping pioneer free web hosting to more than one million accounts before the $40M sale to About.com.
As COO and then CEO of Bluehost, the platform scaled from roughly $5M to about $212M in revenue and the organization from a 21-person startup to about 700 people, with a $212M P&L run to a peak 47% EBITDA margin and four company exits behind it, including a NASDAQ IPO.
Today the focus is Handy Golf, a subscription consumer software platform built from zero. My work sits at the intersection of software, AI, and scalable platforms, building the kind of business that lasts.
Three decades of ventures, from free web hosting to cloud infrastructure to consumer software. The figures below come straight from the record.
Joined as employee 21 and COO, then took the CEO seat for the brand division. Grew revenue to about $212M and the organization to about 700 people serving 1.3M subscribers and more than 3.5M websites, running a $212M P&L to a peak 47% EBITDA margin, about $100M in EBITDA. Expanded beyond shared hosting into VPS, dedicated servers, and cloud, and led the post-acquisition integration into EIG through its October 2013 NASDAQ listing.
Co-founded FreeServers and pioneered free subdomain hosting past one million websites in about 18 months, then sold the company to About.com for about $40M. Led the dot-com turnaround to a freemium subscription model, returning the division to about $2.5M EBITDA and earning About.com Employee of the Year, then led its 2001 divestiture to United Online.
Built the IPv4 leasing business from zero as General Manager, owning strategy, pricing, go-to-market, contracts, provisioning, billing, and support as a team of one. Grew it to 328,000 addresses under lease and roughly $1.4M in annualized recurring revenue at greater than 95% gross margin, and built the framework that has since scaled the business toward one million leased addresses.
Founder and CEO of a native mobile golf-improvement platform, self-funded from concept through App Store launch with a distributed nearshore team. Built proprietary high-speed capture and machine-learning auto-capture technology (ClearSwing IQ), shipped a live Full Swing KIT integration, and grew early access past 4,000 downloads and about 350 weekly active users ahead of a paid launch.
Full ownership of the P&L, org design, and every operating function. Companies get built from the ground up and run to profitability through process discipline, automation, and operating leverage.
Revenue growth from $5M to $212M, subscription and SaaS economics, product and pricing strategy including ARPU growth from about $120 to $160, and customer experience across millions of users.
VP of Product Development early on, then leadership of software development, systems administration, infrastructure, and technical support at scale. Engineering and product organizations get built and led.
M&A, due diligence, and post-acquisition integration across four transactions, including a NASDAQ IPO. Deals get evaluated, negotiated, and integrated with the operating reality in mind.
Took a native mobile golf-improvement product from concept through App Store launch, self-funded, building and leading a distributed nearshore team of five engineers and a designer at roughly 20 to 25% of comparable US development cost, now transitioning to a lean, self-sustaining operation. Built proprietary auto-capture technology (ClearSwing IQ), shipped a live Full Swing KIT integration, and grew early access past 4,000 downloads and about 350 weekly active users.
Built the IPv4 leasing business from zero, owning strategy, pricing, go-to-market, contracts, provisioning, billing, and support as a team of one. Grew it to 328,000 addresses under lease and roughly $1.4M in annualized recurring revenue at greater than 95% gross margin, and built the framework and systems that have since scaled the business toward one million leased addresses.
Served as temporary COO at Podium for about a year, joining at about 70 employees and building the org structure, hiring, contracts, and operating processes that supported growth to roughly 250. Cut customer-service response time from two to three days to under two hours within days, and renegotiated major vendor relationships including payment processing and Salesforce.
Led the Bluehost brand division as CEO following its acquisition by EIG, with full ownership of an approximately $212M P&L generating about $100M in EBITDA at a peak 47% margin in the final months, serving 1.3M subscribers and more than 3.5M websites with about 700 people. Grew revenue per subscriber from about $120 to $160, migrated 20,000 servers into Utah infrastructure to cut data-center cost by about $1M per month, and personally led SOX and IPO readiness through EIG's October 2013 NASDAQ listing (EIGI).
Joined as the 21st employee and built the departments, org structure, and performance system that scaled a startup into a market leader. Grew revenue from about $5M to $65M and customers from about 28,000 to more than 600,000, supporting more than one million websites. Built and led eight functions from scratch and led due diligence on the sale to EIG.
Co-founded North Sky and launched FreeServers.com in 1998, growing it past one million hosted websites in about 18 months and selling the company to About.com for about $40M. Led the dot-com turnaround to a freemium subscription model, returning the division to about $2.5M EBITDA and earning About.com Employee of the Year, then led its 2001 divestiture to United Online.
Open to conversations with boards, investors, and founders who need a full-cycle operator to own the P&L and take a business to its next level.