AMA: We acquired an enterprise SaaS from Ukraine

Earlier this year we acquired Lanteria.com from the two founders who were based in Ukraine. They started the company over ten years ago, they were ready to move on. Obviously the war made them motivated sellers.

We acquired the company raising capital from private investors, and an SBA loan.

I’m here to answer any questions you have about SaaS M&A, enterprise sales, turnarounds, or private equity.

Some more about the deal:

Lanteria is a large, expansive legacy software built for HR teams with flat sales over the past 5 years.

We took over a company where most of the staff had been with the company for 7+ years. We assumed our new management style, and SaaS background would turn things around quickly.

Boy were we wrong.

We have built up a good working relationship with the legacy staff, but we really overestimated our ability to step in and make change.

What have we done well?

We found a product that needs heavy customization, and attracts very complex clients.

So we put together a team from different parts of the org to build a simple product. Three months later, we are rolling out Lanteria Essentials. (We just launched on Product hunt, upvote us https://www.producthunt.com/posts/lanteria-essentials)!

What have we struggled with?

The product is not well documented. As you can imagine, after 10 years, plus limited documentation only experts can develop it.

We are struggling to get the team to help us document so we can onboard new staff.

I have personally struggled to be a good leader to a team where half the people are in a war zone. Taking over a staff that already has built a bond is much harder than expected.

I have also struggled to integrate the non-ukraine team with the Ukraine team. Too often we are operating as separate groups.

Fire away, lets see where I can help: