He went bust, lost everything, and started again from zero. Now
he's built a €40 million ARR SaaS company with ambitions to hit
€150 million in the next few years — and he's only getting
started.
In this episode, we sit down with Tommy Kearns, founder of
Xtremepush, to hear the remarkable story of building one of
Ireland's most ambitious SaaS companies from a Dublin startup in
2014 to a 170+ person international business operating across
Dublin, New York, São Paulo and Australia.
Tommy takes us through every twist in the journey: losing
everything in property during the boom, rebuilding from scratch,
burning a million dollars on a failed first attempt at the US
market, and then going back again and this time making it work in
a massive way.
We discuss:
What Xtremepush actually does and how it helps businesses like
FanDuel, BetMGM, Fanatics, Bank of Ireland, Barclays, An Post,
Laya and Three engage with their customers.
Tommy's early career in telecoms, the massive Digicel deal that
took him to the Caribbean, and the painful lesson about staying
in your lane.
How building apps for corporates through iMobile led to the idea
behind Xtremepush and why Bank of Ireland became one of their
first highly regulated customers in 2015 and is still a customer
11 years later.
The evolution from a push notification tool to a full customer
engagement platform and whether that was always the plan or if
the vision evolved along the way.
How Xtremepush achieved 100%+ revenue growth for two consecutive
years and the "spray and pray" approach Tommy used to test
markets before going all in.
The acquisition strategy that transformed the business:
Emailcenter (email), Alchemetrics (customer data), Thunderbite
(gamification) and Scrimmage (loyalty) and what Tommy has learned
about what to look for in acquisitions, how to merge teams
successfully, and when to build your own M&A capability.
Raising €27.8m from Grafton Capital and entering what Tommy calls
"hyper-growth mode."
Burning a million dollars expanding into the US, the lessons
learned, and how going back a second time paid off massively with
the US now one of their most important markets.
Building and leading a team of 170+ people across Dublin, New
York, São Paulo and Australia and the challenges of scaling
culture and leadership across regions.
The launch of InfinityAI and XpertOS - Tommy's vision for where
AI and agentic technology is taking CRM and customer engagement
next.
Rewarding long-term employees with caps like sport 1 year, 5 year
and 10 year milestones.
Tommy's brilliant answer on what jobs he'd recommend for kids in
the AI era.
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Links & Resources:
Xtremepush: https://www.xtremepush.com/
Follow Tommy on LinkedIn:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/tommykearns/
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