Jay Sachetti joined Jeff O’Brien, partner at Husch Blackwell and Dyanne Ross-Hanson, president of Exit Planning Strategies talked about the market for mergers and acquisitions, exit planning opportunities for companies that don’t end up for sale and how companies can maximize their eventual sale price during an early October panel at the first Upsize on Tap event at Summit Brewing Co. in St. Paul.
When the state Legislature passed a law requiring employers to provide paid leave and safe time for employees, Justin Bieganek started hearing differing details from friends, colleagues and peers.
The bottom line, not the top line, gets the attention of Lynn Richardson these days. He’s the CEO of GateKeeper Systems Inc., an Eagan company that develops systems for vehicle access control at airports.
GateKeeper was one of three winners of the 2004 Upsize Growth Challenge. A year later, he was asked to update his progress.
“Your business is successful in two areas: One is you have to get business, and then you have to make money at it,” Richardson says. “I’m now spending more time on the profitability side.”
He focuses on two areas to boost profits: “Are we doing it right when we bid it, so we have a chance to make money, and are we doing the work efficiently so we can make money?”
On the bidding side, he’s trying to incorporate more people in the process in his organization. He used to do all the bidding himself. “I was not getting enough information at the proposal level from our folks internally,” Richardson says, adding it’s tough to get engineers and others to break away from projects to help bid.
His other lesson learned: “To take the scary step of saying ‘no’ to a new feature, because it is too risky for us to price accurately.”
On the actual performance side, “we’re trying to do a better job on design, and this is Software 101.”
GateKeeper has nine employees. In the past year the company has won three new contracts with airports, and has some pending. But he’s also experienced an excruciating extension in an already long sales cycle. He’s got the contracts in place to double revenue this year from last, but since the jobs haven’t actually started, revenue will be flat this year.
So next year will bring the bonanza? Richardson is asked. He laughs. “You want to know how excited investors are about ‘next year?’ ” he says.
Lynn Richardson, GateKeeper Systems Inc.: 651.365.0700; lr*********@***ys.com; www.gksys.com
