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FieldRoutes  (formerly PestRoutes)

Scaling a Software Company

Founded: 2013
Invested: 2018
Status: Current, Minority Ownership
Location: McKinney, TX
Overview

FieldRoutes is a cloud-based and mobile SaaS provider for field service businesses. The platform automates all aspects of field service operations for enterprise and small business customers that span office management, advanced route optimization, payment processing, digital sales, marketing, and customer acquisition solutions that accelerate growth, streamline operations, increase customer retention, and maximize revenue. 

Outcome

FieldRoutes was acquired by ServiceTitan in 2022.

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At-A-Glance
  • Recruited Management Team (CEO, CFO, Director of Sales, VP of Product, VP of Talent)
  • Helped founder/CEO fulfill his goal to remove himself from day-to-day operations, but continue on the board as a key strategic contributor
  • Recruited two Independent Board Members
  • Enhanced payments ecosystem to optimize payments revenue stream
  • Completed a strategic acquisition resulting in new product line extensions
  • Grew employee base by 4x
  • Reduced churn and improved cross sell and upsell to drive improved Net Revenue Retention (NRR)
The Story

PestRoutes’ founder, Jared Green, discovered the pest control services industry in college when he spent a summer as a door-to-door salesperson. Seeing the potential of the industry, Green began hiring salespeople and grew his operation. In looking for a technological solution to support this growth, Green found the existing pest control ERP systems to be expensive, dated and bulky. So, he built his own solution.

In 2013, Jared launched PestRoutes to provide ERP software for the pest management industry. In 2018, when Green wanted to take his bootstrapped company to the next level, he decided to team up with Mainsail Partners.

“I was confident in my product, my team and my industry,” says Green, “I was also passionate about maintaining some control over the direction of my company. In researching potential investment partners, I found that Mainsail was specialized in supporting software founders like me, who have validated their product in their core market and are looking for help and resources to attack the broader market opportunity.”

"In researching potential investment partners, I found that Mainsail was specialized in supporting software founders like me, who have validated their product in their core market and are looking for help and resources to attack the broader market opportunity."

Jared Green
Founder, PestRoutes
MAINSAIL'S VALUE ADD
Talent Acquisition:

At the time of investment, PestRoutes’ executive team was comprised of the CEO (founder), CTO and Director of Customer Success. The CEO’s goal was to exit the day-to-day management of the business. Knowing this, Mainsail recruited from its pool of talent to bring in an interim executive, Andy Lloyd, a former NetSuite executive.

Mainsail then helped PestRoutes build out a complete management team including a Director of Sales, CFO, Chief People Officer and VP of Product & Marketing. Lloyd transitioned to the Board of Directors and Mainsail helped recruit Patrick McKittrick as CEO. Finally, Mainsail recruited Jeff Gardner to the Board; another former Mainsail executive with relevant experience leading a vertical ERP software company with an integrated payments component.

Sales & Marketing Expansion:

Mainsail helped the company scale its go-to-market operation in several ways, including working with the team to implement a bottoms up resource planning model to inform a hiring plan for the sales team, optimizing commission plans and implementing improved tracking and attribution for marketing programs.

In addition, Mainsail helped PestRoutes transition from a custom-built CRM to a professional tech stack, including Salesforce, HubSpot and, SalesLoft. Mainsail also helped optimize the company’s sales processes and updated its sales enablement collateral.

Organization:

Mainsail worked with the management team to implement Customer Success (CS) best practices, including:

  • Launching the company’s first NPS reporting and tracking program
  • Creating a health score system to tier the customer base
  • Developing specific CS strategies to serve and activate each tier

In addition, Mainsail worked with PestRoutes to take measures to enhance their payments revenue. This included an audit of payments partners, an analysis of the payments stream structure, competitive negotiations with payments facilitators and, ultimately, optimization of the company’s payments revenue stream.

Outcome

As Mainsail was doing due diligence on PestRoutes, the firm had identified a number of potential strategic acquisitions, including a tech-enabled digital marketing company called Lobster Marketing. Mainsail helped execute the acquisition of Lobster and subsequently helped PestRoutes to productize a website offering from the newly acquired company. Mainsail worked with the company on a pricing optimization project and go-to-market strategy as part of the product launch.

In 2020, Mainsail sold a majority of its ownership in PestRoutes. The firm remains involved with the company through a minority ownership stake and a seat on the board.