David Durik is best known as the former Founder and CEO of Indatus, a leading provider of emergency call-handling services to the multifamily housing industry. With the help of SEG’s transaction advisory services, Indatus achieved significant growth and was eventually sold to RealPage in 2015. View Transaction Details.
TRANSCRIPTION
Introduction
{David Durik:} Hi, I’m David Durik, I’m the former Founder and CEO of Indatus. We sold to RealPage in 2015. We are based in Louisville, KY and we provide emergency call-handling services primarily to the multifamily housing industry.
The Work it Takes to Sell
{David Durik:} I ran the company for 25 years. There comes a point in time, I think where you invested your heart and your soul and all your dollars kept going back into the company, that it was prudent for us to at least entertain the idea of taking some of that money off the table. We figured if we didn’t do a whole lot of work that we could probably sell our company for $30 to $35 million. But the process and the fine tuning and the distilling down of the message and marketing to the right folks, that is what got us from let’s say $35 million to $50 million, and that’s all a byproduct of the work that SEG did.
Digging Deep to Uncover Bad Habits
{David Durik:} What was unique about Software Equity Group was that when we reached out to Allen our first conversation with him was over an hour long. He asked the right questions. Obviously, he needed to know what financially our sales were and what our profitability were. But he, even on the first call, dug deeper. He asked questions about what we wanted after the field as entrepreneurs, and you know, we had bad habits. We were always creative folks and, I say we but I was probably the biggest problem in the company in that I always came up with new ideas and new ways we thought we could drive revenue.
Driving Value with a Clear Message
{David Durik:} There was a lot of ferreting out that I think Software Equity Group did when it came to distilling the message down to Indatus being this one product and that there’s revenue streams that were being used to fund side projects. But they cleared that noise out so that potential buyers could have a very clean, clear picture of what we did and the profitability around that one product line. Their ability to distill that down to one clean clear message for buyers, I think absolutely drove value without questions.
Sharing a People-Oriented Culture
{David Durik:} Software Equity Group was just a tremendous company to work with. I can’t say enough about the job that they did for us selling our company. I don’t know if I would be in the position I am today without their help. Not only did they do a great professional job, they really take an interest in the people, the company, and in our case, that was important because we are very people-oriented. Our culture has always been about people and I think Software Equity Group, when they came and they sat down in our office and even from the very initial meetings that we had, there was a connection there.
Next Call Goes to SEG for Transaction Advisory
{David Durik:} I couldn’t think of a better company that I could recommend, ever. You know, for what we did in the process that we went through. If we’re fortunate enough to build our new company to a position where we can have it acquired, then there will only be one call that I would make and that would be to Software Equity Group to help me.