Linear #016: ServiceTitan Case Study, The Power Of Roadshows, The Mailbox App

One Vertical SaaS breakdown. One business story. One 'how to'. In your inbox once a week.

Luke Sophinos

Apr 17, 2023

ServiceTitan Case Study

2 Armenian immigrants built a ~$10B vertical SaaS company by creating software for home service businesses.

In ~10 years, they've helped 100,000+ technicians and 12,000+ companies.

The story of ServiceTitan, an amazing company you've probably never heard of:

Vahe Kuzoyan and Ara Mahdessian are the founders of California-based software company, ServiceTitan. ServiceTitan is a cloud software tool that streamlines every aspect of a home service business. These are plumbers, electricians, HVAC pros, carpet cleaners, and more.

In 2022, customers leveraged ServiceTitan to:

Complete 30M+ jobs
Process $25B+ in transaction volume

The founders started the company to help their parents, who were home service contractors. And they haven't looked back since. Let's dive in 👇

Ara Mahdessian was born in 1985 amidst the chaos of war in Tiran. In a similar timeline, Vahe Kuzoyan, born in 1983, and his family struggled in Armenia. It was a difficult time for both families.

Both families fled their countries to find safety in Southern California - home to America's biggest Armenian community. Growing up in an immigrant community, they witnessed their parents' hard work and determination firsthand.

Both their fathers became successful building and plumbing contractors despite facing language barriers and logistical challenges. Ara and Vahe took keen note of this.

Ara and Vahe first met on a college ski trip for Armenian students. Ara studied at Stanford and Vahe was at USC, both studying software engineering. After graduating, they teamed up on several consulting projects.

In 2012 they came together to build ServiceTitan — A software platform that could help home service businesses streamline their operations and provide better service to their customers.

News spread fast in the Armenian community that the co-founders had a tool that could ease entrepreneurs' most frustrating operating problems. And that was it. The business swelled. Fun fact: Vahe's parents were the OG beta customers.

In its early days, ServiceTitan focused on plumbing, HVAC, and electrical businesses. Vahe and Ara knew they needed to scale quickly. They focused on building a great product and finding the right people to join their team. And they did...

In 2015, ServiceTitan raised $18 million in Series A funding led by Bessemer Venture Partners. This pivotal moment allowed them to expand their team, refine their product, and reach even more customers.

In 2016, ServiceTitan launched a mobile app for technicians and integrated it with industry-leading tools and partners.

By 2017, ServiceTitan had become a force to be reckoned with, amassing over 1,000 customers and processing $1 billion+ in transactions. This incredible growth attracted another $62 million in Series B funding, and the company’s valuation reached $2 billion in 2018.

By 2019, the company had:

800+ employees
3,000+ customers
50,000+ technicians

Talk about exponential growth!

By 2020, ServiceTitan had more than 100 partners. With this added ammunition, they rolled out a slew of new features such as marketing analytics, custom reporting and financing integrations.

In 2021, ServiceTitan raised $500M in Series F funding led by Tiger Global and Sequoia Capital Global Equities. This gave the company an $8.3B valuation, five times more than its previous valuation of $1.65B in 2018.

ServiceTitan made another strategic move in 2021: They acquired Aspire Software, a business management software for the field service and construction industries. Aspire had 50k+ users and processed $4B+ in annualized transactions. The acquisition made sense.

This strategic move expanded their reach and laid the groundwork for even more ambitious growth. By 2023, just ten years after its inception, ServiceTitan had grown into an industry titan, boasting 7,500 customers and impacting the lives 100,000+ technicians and office staff.

The platform had processed a jaw-dropping $20 billion in transactions, proving its immense value to the home services sector. At a tiny processing fee, the revenue through their FinTech offering is ENORMOUS.

But beyond the numbers, ServiceTitan is proof that the American dream is alive and well. Two immigrants who set out to solve their families problems now help so many people just like them. And they've likely become near billionaires along the way. Absolutely amazing.