Why We Founded PEAK
A conversation with PEAK Co-founders Chad Harding, David Stevenson, and Dave Kirby about how bootstrapping helped them survive in the early days—and relate to their clients, their vision for the future of PEAK, and why team matters most.
Why did you found PEAK? And when did you know you wanted to start PEAK together?
DAVID: We always considered ourselves entrepreneurs as well as investment bankers. Before founding PEAK, we had cumulatively spent over 50 years in investment banking and overwhelmingly knew how much value we could add to any M&A or capital raising process. We’d also spent the years prior to founding PEAK helping tech founders successfully navigate one of the most stressful situations of their careers—selling their businesses. We loved working with founders and, candidly, we were quite successful at it. The three of us had worked together before, so we knew we could work well together. More importantly, we had a shared vision of creating a lasting boutique advisory firm where we could build a team of people we trusted and respected, and even have some fun.
CHAD: I had always dreamed of starting my own business, but after working at Lehman Brothers and Barclays Capital, an investment bank felt to me like a massive organization with a ton of capital and people and capabilities. The idea of starting my own investment bank felt a little far-fetched. However, after leaving Barclays and joining a boutique investment bank, I realized it didn’t require as many resources as expected. What you’re selling are your own services. Once I had a path forward, and two fantastic partners in David and Dave, I knew it was time to start something new and to prove its success.
When did PEAK Technology Partners become reality?
CHAD: The groundwork for starting PEAK was put in place over many years, but once we decided to pull the trigger, things started to move very quickly. Before we could land our first client, we had to come up with a name, a logo, and a website. We made a list of possible names and PEAK was the one that spoke to all three of us. I grew up in Utah in the shadows of the Wasatch Mountains, and I love hiking and snowboarding in the mountains. I love the perspective and the view that you get after you climb to the top of a peak. I love the metaphor of advising clients with the benefit of experience and perspective. “PEAK Technology Partners” was the clear winner because it emphasized our focus on technology and our approach of partnering with our clients. I designed the logo and built our first website over the weekend, and we were off to the races.
I remember having lunch with our first prospective client, a San Francisco-based software startup. I gave him the pitch, and he asked if he would be our first client. Instead of apologizing, I just owned it. I said, “Absolutely, I’m so excited. Let’s do this together.” The founder loved that I was also a founder, and that I was focused on building my business. He took a chance on me because he knew he would have my undivided attention; his trust was the most important thing, and his success was absolutely essential to my success. Fast forward several months, we found a buyer and helped him sell his business. It was that initial win that helped convince all three of us that PEAK could be successful and was worthy of our undivided attention going forward.
How do you approach your partnership with founders?
“Every founder has a vision, they’ve made a bet on themselves, bootstrapped, and ultimately grown their companies. Founders are inherently both doers and dreamers. I love that combination.”
DAVID: I enjoy the vibrance of dealing with tech founders on a day-to-day basis. Tech founders are culturally quite different from the professional stewards who run large, publicly traded companies. Many of our clients didn't ‘grow up’ in a corporate setting. They may not have focused on professional degrees or being groomed through the corporate ladder. Some of our clients didn’t even graduate from high school. But every founder started with a vision - and had enough grit and conviction to bet on themselves and build a business. Founders are inherently both doers and dreamers. I love that combination.
DAVE: We bootstrapped PEAK and have been through some hard times, so we share a common bond with many other entrepreneurs. Almost everybody at PEAK has been an operator at some point, so we also bring that valuable perspective to any engagement and can relate more to our clients. These types of experiences are rare for investment bankers and have improved our abilities to communicate the right story to an investor or buyer. We focus on transparency with our clients, and as PEAK founders, we’re involved from day one through close on all of our deals. We're constantly in touch and communicating with our clients. We also share all of the data—everything from the names of the parties we’ve approached to our communications and notes. We're comfortable sharing everything because we have done the work. We roll up our sleeves as partners and do a lot of the heavy lifting; we're not calling our analysts before the weekly client catch-up call saying, “Hey, what's going on with the deal?” So senior-level attention at PEAK is actually senior-level attention.
CHAD: Banking is such a people-driven business; you're not really hiring a firm; you're hiring a team of individuals. Ultimately, where the rubber hits the road is with the team that's executing the deal. The thing I love about PEAK is that each of us are entrepreneurs and are running a mini business inside of PEAK. Each one of us feels responsibility and cares about the quality of client service we provide. Dave, David, and I are all cut from the same cloth. We treat everyone with respect. We aim to come in and build consensus. We can be tough when we need to be, especially when negotiating, but we are real and approachable. When you're a sell-side bank, you don't typically get repeat business, but we've had three clients return to sell another business with us. We work side by side with founders as their partners.
What sets your process apart from other boutique investment banks?
“We may have to run through walls to get a deal done, but we don’t give up.”
DAVE: We're here to find the right buyer or investor and ultimately optimize deal outcomes for founders. If you want to work with people who have great experience, we tick that box. We've done great deals, and we can tell you plenty of stories, but our model is different. We put our clients’ interests first. In fact, we frequently sacrifice what could be perceived as short-term gains by our firm to make our clients happy in the long-term. The selling process is incredibly intense, so you want to work with someone who you feel really comfortable talking to, who you feel is listening to you. We truly listen to what you want, and we're always on your side.
CHAD: The secret to a successful deal is making sure that you have alternatives. It's really easy to get locked in on your first choice and put all of your eggs in that basket. We work really hard to make sure other options are a real possibility, too. In our most recent deal, we explored four different options until we ultimately landed on the best outcome for the founder and the company. It’s all about creating leverage from competition. In the case of that deal, there was a clear winner, but they were dragging their feet. We pushed the second alternative to provide an even more attractive offer, and that leverage gave us the confidence to go back to the first party and tell them we were going to go the other direction. That got them to change their tune. If we had tunnel vision and focused on just our top choice, we would have taken a suboptimal deal. Because we had an open mind and seriously considered the second option, we were able to close a better deal for our client. You've got to have plan B’s and plan C’s in place. You also have to be willing to do extra work. We care about every single deal, and we may have to run through walls to get a deal done, but we don't give up.
What kind of team culture are you trying to build?
DAVID: Culture is the most important thing. We want morally, ethically good people with both high IQs and high EQs. We're looking for team members who have the technical banking capabilities and the emotional intelligence to work with clients and our team. We also know there’s a steep learning curve in this business, so we offer real mentorship. You will learn the execution side of the business, and you’re also expected to do business development; everyone on our team does both. Everyone is motivated to work hard and feels rewarded for that work, and we always remind our team that the sky’s the limit in terms of opportunity. We want new team members to be long-term employees. Once you join us, you've got a home here, and we will support you in having a fulfilling career.
DAVE: We're trying to find teammates who can grow into leaders at the firm. We’re looking to expand the pie and scale in a way that brings in great people to help build our platform. We’re looking for hardworking teammates who are passionate about helping entrepreneurs. We also support teammates who want to work remotely. We have one VP who spent part of his year surfing in Mexico, and another part skiing in Tahoe. If you're getting your work done, and you're doing a good job, we'd love to see you doing more of the stuff you love to do. We all share the mindset of knocking it out of the park for our clients while also balancing time with our families and friends.
CHAD: We're not your typical bankers. In my past banking roles, I was told that I was too nice to the junior members of the team and needed to be more demanding. Part of that is just my personality, but the other part was the conscious decision that if I treated analysts with respect and went to bat for them, when I needed help, they would do the same for me. That ethos of treating others well regardless of seniority is inherent in PEAK’s culture.
What are you most proud of, and what’s next for PEAK?
DAVE: One of the things I'm most proud of is the relationship between David, Chad and me. We’ve been through so many tough battles together, but the relationship has never suffered. I think that's pretty unique. We're all about the same age with families and other commitments, so building PEAK definitely wasn't easy. Our relationship was tested many times, but we all knew that the model could work, and if we really persevered, we could build a winning platform. We’ve made some key hires, and now we're finally reaping some of the benefits of that hard work.
DAVID: I'm most proud of our culture. We are hardworking, scrappy, smart professionals, and we're also people. We have an abundance of empathy and as founders, I feel like it’s our job to provide the highest quality experience for both our clients and our teammates. Longer term, we’ll continue to expand the team and our coverage area within technology. In the meantime, we’ll continue to do what we know and what we do best: partner with our clients and focus on their goals. We’ll continue to nurture the people that work at PEAK and hopefully have some fun!
CHAD: The three of us are very optimistic people; we all believed in ourselves and believed PEAK would work. Most startups fail within two years, and in the early days I remember thinking, “If we can just make this work for the first two years, our chances of success will go way up in the long term.” There have been times when our runway was short, and we didn’t know how we were going to pay the bills. 2020 was a breakout year for us; we closed ten deals over an eight-month span. I still feel scrappy, and I still feel like we have a lot to prove, but we’ve made it past that two-year mark, we’re growing, and we’re excited for the future.