Bootstrapping Using Services to $35M from Ireland, Then Raising $70M: Teamwork CEO Peter Coppinger (Part 6)

Sramana Mitra: How do you compare with companies like Replicon?

Peter Coppinger: I don’t know Replicon. I have to check them out.

Sramana Mitra: I haven’t talked to them in a long time, but their pitch is similar to yours. I haven’t tracked them.

Peter Coppinger: There are products out there that are super complicated and very expensive. It’s not made for the workers. We solve both sides and have a Goldilocks solution. We try to give your workers everything they need to get the work done super efficiently without overwhelming them. Then we try to give the CEOs of smaller companies and project managers of medium-sized companies everything you need to scale.

Everything from taking on to the work, completing the work, and supporting the work all on one platform. We hook you with project management and help you deliver client work. Then we help you get super organized. We have this blueprint for how you can scale up your agency and be super successful.

Sramana Mitra: What about the financing?

Peter Coppinger: Just as we were about to raise money, COVID hit. It was Zoom call after Zoom call. It’s still an involved process. We ended up raising more money than we initially were looking for. We were going to raise $50 million but got an offer for $70 million from Breakout Milestone.

Sramana Mitra: How did it happen?

Peter Coppinger: We got a really great board that I had created before we needed a board. The board advised us that we should get a banker and let them run the process. It’s an expensive way to do it. The benefit of bringing in a banker is they have a deep Rolodex. They know everyone.

Sramana Mitra: For a later company like yours, it’s an okay decision to use a banker.

Peter Coppinger: It’s more expensive, but that worked pretty well. Now we have all the ammunition we need to go bigger. There are two related parts to this. As a bootstrapped company, you reach a point where it becomes difficult to attract superstars. I want to attract the best salesperson in the world. I don’t want to be limited by this.

The best people in the world want to earn great money. They see colleagues and friends working at companies that have big liquidity events. They want that for themselves. Who can blame them? Being a funded company means that you are on track for a liquidity event in the future which is what they want. We have attracted a couple of superstars that we probably wouldn’t have managed to get as a bootstrapped company.

Sramana Mitra: How many people do you have now?

Peter Coppinger: 350.

Sramana Mitra: What is the configuration? Do you still have a big presence in Ireland?

Peter Coppinger: We do. Most of our customers are based in America. We always struggled to cover the West Coast of the States. We only had three hours of overlap. We’re opening an office in Denver now to fix this problem. We probably have 170 in Ireland. We have an office in Belfast and Cork. We have a small place in Boston.

Sramana Mitra: That’s mostly sales and marketing?

Peter Coppinger: It’s a mix.

Sramana Mitra: Do you want to add anything else?

Peter Coppinger: Looking to the future, we are excited now that we have the ammunition that we need to fulfill our vision. We want to be the ultimate way to run your agency or client work in the world. We’re missing two pieces. One is the proposal side of things. The other is to make the platform take payments on your behalf from your customers. We can’t wait to scale out.

Sramana Mitra: Wonderful story. Thank you for your time.

This segment is part 6 in the series : Bootstrapping Using Services to $35M from Ireland, Then Raising $70M: Teamwork CEO Peter Coppinger
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