Meet Todd Cusolle. Todd is the founder of KORE, an all-in-one business management system for professional sports organizations and the brands that sponsor them. We sat down with Todd to learn more about his experience with Serent Capital. Todd and his co-founders pivoted KORE to focus on the professional sports sector following the Great Recession. “Around that time, we made a hard pivot to becoming a SaaS business and really bet the company on that. But we knew that running a SaaS business, especially when you start getting into seven figures and above in revenue, is a whole different animal. Neither of us really had the experience running a business like that. 

“We knew we needed partners that had done this a few dozen times before. And as we checked out what potential acquirers or investors there were for KORE to bring us to the next level, we were skeptical that we were going to do anything because we didn’t need any capital. We didn’t know what we didn’t know. But we knew we should have some conversations and see where they led. 

Shattering Preconceptions About Private Equity 

Meeting with Serent shattered Todd’s preconceptions about what a private equity partner could do for KORE. “What I discovered in meeting with a few dozen different private equity firms was that they were not all created equally. And there was something called growth equity, which I hadn’t even heard of before,” Todd recalls. 

“Sitting down with the folks in the growth group with Serent really showed us there could be people that could answer questions in a way that we couldn’t and could actually get enough familiarity with our company to help us in all of the key aspects that we needed without sending us thousands of dollars an hour in bills. It was really an education in how this could possibly help us and how growth equity is different.” 

“I would say the decision was selling our mind that we need to do something and after that, it came down to the people,” Todd remembers. “So it was ultimately our heart that decided to go with Serent. It was the people we spent time with. It was other founders who had already worked with Serent who told me that these are the same people after you do a transaction with them as before. And I called it a transaction, but it’s definitely not transactional.” 

Preserving a Unique Company Culture 

When KORE partnered with Serent, Todd and the leadership team were focused on preserving the culture of making big bets. “At KORE, one of the cultural elements that we cherish the most is being able to make big bets on our employees, initiatives we want to do, or even our customers – and often these decisions don’t make sense on paper,” Todd explains. 

“To give you an example of the types of bets that we might be making, we might have a junior employee that comes in at entry level and rises pretty quickly. A lot of organizations might be reluctant to give those people the ability to run a new department just coming in, but honestly our management team right now is half composed of people that have followed that type of trajectory. And we wanted to make sure that the company could continue to grow in that way. 

“On the customer side, there is also the culture at KORE of making big bets on those customers. We had to do things like a a massive switch from a traditional software company to SaaS, and that’s a life or death bet that the company takes, but we also make smaller bets as well, where we have a customer that comes on for something that’s very strategic to us, like our evolving brand business right now. 

Todd and the KORE team were attracted to Serent’s willingness to embrace the philosophy of big bets. “We wanted to have partners that would maybe increase our batting average on those types of bets,” Todd notes, “but also is capable of having the discussion and then letting management make the decision and live or die by it. Making big bets that don’t necessarily make a lot of sense on paper is probably one of the biggest cultural elements at KORE.” 

Growing Market Share through M&A 

One of the big bets Todd and the Serent team made was going after a different market. “Our professional sports customers are our bread and butter, and we’re bringing on new ones. But we know that there’s only so many of them in the world,” Todd observes. “We needed to bet maybe not all the company, but a little bit of the company, in going after a much larger market, which are the brands that are our customers’ customers. 

“That’s a total addressable market that’s easily ten times bigger – if not more. We had the support from Serent and the board to do acquisitions in that area, so we ended up executing a number of acquisitions that leapfrogged us in that particular business. We could see some upstart competitors that were already getting some traction. And we’ve acquired those competitors.” 

Working With An Experienced Partner 

Working with growth partners with deep in-the-trenches experience was one of the most valuable parts of KORE’s collaboration with Serent. “The magic that I really found in partnering with Serent comes from the fact that they have a large sample size of companies that they’ve dealt with,” Todd observes. “They have the education, the MBAs, the time spent at the large consulting firms. And they have a very genuine respect for entrepreneurs and founders. They understand what it’s like to have literally been sleeping in your office and not paying yourself for a few years. So in the relationship with Serent, it’s been very symbiotic.” 

Drawing on Serent’s expertise was transformative for KORE. “Serent has done this before. They’ve had their neck on the line for a decade plus. And that experience is irreplaceable,” Todd reflects. “This is not just people agreeing with you in a meeting. This is people that are ready to bring millions of dollars and thousands of hours at work to help you execute on decisions, which would have been completely impossible as the solo company that we were before.”