Growth Capital for Bootstrapped Businesses
For Bootstrappers looking for a partner that is obsessed with ‘responsible growth’ and the culture and systems that nurture it.
Values alignment is critical to us and as such we want to be transparent about ours
Founder Fit
For Founders interested in architecting for sustainable growth.
Our calling is to provide the guidance and support that can positively affect the trajectory of your business. We aim to do this with a lens towards a 10 year growth horizon.
We seek partners who are interested in retaining meaningful equity ownership behind a collaborative vision with the objective of generating future outcomes that are multiples of whats been achieved to date.
Operational Excellence
We believe that execution trumps ideas, in business and in life.
Over 15 years, we have refined frameworks and mental models across the domains of Product, Go-To-Market, Talent, Partnerships and M&A.
Leveraging these, we will work with you to define the 5 - 7 gears that will drive meaningful value creation for your business.
Thereafter… execution is everything
Product Focus
We are product and customer obsessed.
For us any journey starts with a product or service that uniquely solves a customer pain point or streamlines a critical workflow.
Over the years, we’ve developed expertise in workflow solutions and data products enabling us to steer these business models in exciting and innovative directions
Action Bias
Cowboys > Professors
We endorse proactivity over passive contemplation.
Our companies operate in highly competitive environments without the luxury of perfect information. The only thing that we are 100% confident of is that status quo is not an option.
We encourage decisiveness with a mentality towards ‘thinking in bets’ and iterative experimentation.
Responsible Growth
We reject the notion of growth at any cost.
We’ve found that hockey stick graphs often lead to missed expectations, systemic stress and unintended collateral damage.
Instead, we prioritize setting the foundation for 15-30% growth sustained over a decade.
Our investment philosophy has been refined to avoid the former and achieve the latter. It also helps us sleep better at night.
Culture
Culture is a force multiplier.
A bootstrapped business’s success is a manifestation of the culture that the Founders have cultivated.
It is a critical component of our evaluation criteria. Resilient cultures are often ‘demanding but kind’ and embrace a diversity of backgrounds, experiences and ideas.
This is how we are building GearBox and what we look for in our partners.
Investment Focus
Bootstrapped and founder led software, data or technology enabled services companies
$5MM+ Revenue
10%+ Revenue growth
Compelling Unit Economics
Break-even or beyond
20%+ Founder\Management Rollover
Differentiated Value Proposition
Solutions that offer compelling value propositions to their customers (often quantifiable) with a differentiation that can be sustained over time
Attractive Engine
Differentiated technology, compelling customer base, unique go-to-market or other identifiable network effects
Multiple paths to a ‘win’
5 - 7 identifiable ‘Gears’ that align with the GearBox playbooks
Sectors of Expertise
While sector agnostic, areas where we have particularly deep networks and expertise include
SMB Software
Sales and Marketing Solutions
Office Productivity Tools
Data Aggregators
Information Services
Healthcare Services
Marketing Services
Meet the Gearbox Team
Omair Sarwar
Founder, CEO
Read Full Bio
Tom Abernethy
Vice President
Read full bio
Advisors
Moneesh Arora
Chief Executive Officer at Unifocus
Linkedin
Marco Castillo
VP GTM Strategy
DocuSign
LinkedIn
Justin Kuykendall
Board Member Captify
LinkedIn
Terry Waters
Multi-Run CEO, CMO Gartner
LinkedIn
Pravan Prasad
Founder, CEO Clarity Clinic
LinkedIn
Franklin Rios
Chief Business Officer Choreograph
LinkedIn
Asher Meister Aldama Co-Founder Sprout Health Group
LinkedIn
Sean Mooney
Founder, CEO BluWave
LinkedIn
Zaka Shafiq
Founder, CEO UCC Enterprises
LinkedIn
Anooshay Arif
GearOps - FinOps Lead
Read full bio
Companies
Current
Greenshades Software handles the headaches that come along with running payroll so our clients can focus on more important things
PowerPoint timeline maker for professionals to present project plans
and Gantt charts
Offers all-in-one CRM and Marketing Automation solutions for small and midsize businesses*
Leading Search Intelligence Platform with access to real-time searches from 2 billion devices worldwide*
Provide solutions for knowledge sharing, online collaboration, and learning in tech and tech-enabled companies*
Select Prior
DaySmart has been providing business management solutions for over 20 years*
* Investments by Omair Sarwar while at SFW Capital Partners, LLC
GearOps
Bootstrapped technology companies are often built on a ‘lean’ founder mindset. Natural constraints require the careful allocation of resources which is challenging while dealing with the reality of operating in increasingly competitive environments.
We have found that businesses that we engage with are often hesitant (due to a lack of internal expertise) or incapable of (due to lack of scale) to effectively take advantage of the benefits of a globally diverse talent pool. The barrier to entry goes beyond simple cost arbitrage to the identification of high quality, reliable vendors and resources that are willing to serve the needs of a smaller enterprise.
In recognition of this challenge, we decided to develop a dedicated service for our portfolio companies with a particular focus on Pakistan as a source of high quality technical talent that we can access given our unique network and expertise.
Accessing this resource has allowed our portfolio companies to accelerate their efforts across R&D, Marketing, Finance and Operations in a cost effective and scalable fashion
For additional information please reach out
DOWNLOAD CASE STUDIES