Hitting $30M ARR with the first product he built

Kevin Wagstaff learned SEO and, after doing his time in a cubicle, knocked it out of the park with his first startup. Spectora is now at $30M ARR — and it was recently acquired.

Here's Kevin on how he did it. 👇

From college to cubicle

I was a finance major, but I taught myself SEO to get a job in tech and then started my career at HomeAdvisor/Angie's List. Then, I got my real estate license and did that for five years while working at HomeAdvisor.

But while I was sitting in my cubicle reading TechCrunch, I knew I wanted to run a startup.

I wanted the unlimited upside. The ability to channel everything I learned playing basketball in high school and college. The feeling that every ounce of hard work would be attributed back to me. Growing myself while growing a company.

So, I knew that sitting in a cubicle and working my way up the corporate ladder was not for me.

Then, in 2017, I launched Spectora — all-in-one home inspection software. I grew it to $10M ARR, then sold half my stake to a great founder-friendly PE firm in 2023 at a $90M valuation. Then, I sold another 10% in 2024 at a $110M valuation.

I still hold 12% and we did roughly $30M this year. We're expecting to end 2026 at $40M.

Begging for beta testers

I had interviewed a lot of inspectors to get started. I bought them Starbucks gift cards to talk to me. I asked them about their pain points and what they liked about their current software.

Then, my brother built the MVP — the stack is mostly Rails and Vue. We both put in $2500 to pay for the AWS instance and the domain name.

From there, it was just lots and lots of show-and-tells with inspectors. I begged for beta testers. Gave introductory deals to test and give feedback. Then, I innovated and improved their workflows.

Overcoming obscurity

Our biggest challenge was obscurity in the first two years. We were new and unproven.

We overcame it by:

• Showing up to Facebook groups every single day for years to answer questions, engage, and start conversations.

• Creating massive amounts of content to gain credibility and familiarity.

• Rapid iteration to show we were invested in improving our customers' lives.

Overall, our growth pillars were:

• Engaging in Facebook groups.

• Word of mouth. It's a cliché, but wowing customers with our chat support has always been valuable.

• SEO. We were content machines.

• Conferences.

Don't expect work-life balance

I did not expect or want work-life balance. I knew what I signed up for and what was required for this business to grow! That was a huge advantage.

I think it came down to my background in athletics. It helped me in numerous ways throughout the journey — but particularly in my ability to dial in for long periods of time and compete endlessly.

Revenue growth

We use a SaaS + usage model, so our revenue grows with customers and usage. We've also grown revenue in a few ways:

• Went upmarket to Enterprise

• Added advanced product suites

• Added payments as a revenue stream.

Overall, though, what brings in revenue is consistency across the board with our team and product. That's how we keep the lead we've built.

Close the loop

Here's my advice:

• Launch and ship early and often.

• Get feedback and iterate quickly.

• Close the loop with every single lead/tester/customer. Treat them like they'll be your only customer.

• Understand that there might be sacrifices to get what you want. You might have to miss family time and events.

And if we had to start over, I would:

• Formalize our sales process and funnel sooner. Learn our CAC and ACV sooner.

• Do more automated testing sooner. Fewer outages that put the business at risk.

• Be more intentional about personally being involved with hires for culture fit.

What's next?

I recently sold Spectora. Currently, I'm mentoring seed funds and entrepreneur groups, and learning how to golf. Other than that, I'd love to share my story more to inspire or help others. I feel so fortunate.

I also have a newborn son, so that's exciting!

Follow along

You can find me on X and Instagram. I also did a few pods (1, 2).