MP (HR Services Company)

In 2003, Jason founded what would become MP as a pure payroll service focused on serving small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs). For nearly a decade, this model worked—the company grew steadily, reaching its fastest growth year in 2011 with 44% year-over-year expansion, taking revenue from roughly $2 million to $3 million. But the writing was on the wall. Large players were commoditizing the payroll space with pricing power, and new entrants like Gusto were disrupting the SMB market through the CPA channel with aggressively low pricing. Payroll margins were getting crushed.

In 2012, Jason made a bold strategic pivot. Rather than fight a commoditizing market, he partnered with iSOLVE, a human capital management suite, and transitioned his entire client base from legacy proprietary payroll software to the iSOLVE platform over two years. The company repositioned itself as an HR technology and services provider rather than a pure payroll processor. This wasn't about building new tech—it was about becoming a distribution and services layer on top of iSOLVE's platform, handling onboarding, employee benefits administration, timekeeping, offboarding, HR workflows, and more. The target market also shifted upmarket: from SMB to lower-mid-market companies with 50-500 employees.

Once Jason completed the transition and expanded his service offerings, he built a direct sales machine. By the time of this interview, the company had grown to a 12-person account executive team and a 5-person SDR team, each AE carrying a quota between $400,000 and $650,000 in annual recurring revenue. Customer acquisition wasn't cheap—their CAC of $11,000 against an average deal value of $6,500 meant a 20-month payback period, which Jason acknowledged put real stress on cash flow early on. But the unit economics were strong enough to support investment: the company was dedicating 26% of revenues back to sales and marketing.

The pivot proved transformational. By 2021, MP had grown to serve 1,300+ client logos representing approximately 40,000 employee seats. The subscription pricing model—ranging from $8 to $40 per employee per month depending on service level—created predictable, scalable revenue. At an average of $13 per employee per month across the base, with average customers having 29 employees, the math worked: $650,000 MRR with a projected $10 million in annual recurring revenue by year-end 2021. Churn was surprisingly manageable at ~10% (4% controllable, 6% non-controllable from acquisitions/closures), and the company achieved 105% net dollar retention in 2021 through land-and-expand motions. The company remained bootstrapped throughout, with Jason retaining 100% ownership and maintaining an 8% net profit margin—roughly $500,000-$600,000 per month to the bottom line. The secret sauce was stickiness: once companies adopted iSOLVE for payroll, benefits, and onboarding, switching platforms was so operationally painful that customers stayed for 6+ years on average.

By the time of this conversation, MP had grown to 70 employees (zero engineers—the entire company focused on sales, implementation, and customer success). Despite overtures from iSOLVE to acquire them through M&A, Jason declined, preferring to pursue a path toward $25 million in ARR over five years as an independent operator. The largest customer was paying approximately $400,000 annually for full-stack HCM services, and the company had built a regional power in HR services. With predictable cash flow, strong unit economics, and a proven playbook for scaling from payroll to HCM services, MP demonstrated how a bootstrapped agency could outmaneuver larger competitors by focusing on a specific platform vertical and building superior customer intimacy.