Oil Software Enterprise
Share
A Scottish company called Petroleum Exports (PetEx) built highly technical specialist software crucial for oil and gas operations, generating massive profits with minimal overhead and high customer retention.
Key Points:
-
Business Model:
- Specialized software for oil/gas industry operations
- Only 420 enterprise customers
- Charges $300,000/year per license
- Started as consulting, pivoted to software
-
Financial Performance:
- $100M annual revenue
- $67M profit
- $60M paid in dividends to owner
- $911,000 revenue per employee
- 86 total employees
-
Cost Structure:
- Main expense is employees
- Average employee cost: £101,000/year
- Benefits from lower UK software engineer salaries vs US
-
Product Value Proposition:
- Mission-critical software for oil operations
- Handles complex features like "multi-phase network modeling" and "thorough dynamics fluid characterization"
- High switching costs make customers sticky
- Price increases easily absorbed by customers due to relative cost vs oil operations
-
Growth Journey:
- Founded 1990 in Aberdeen, Scotland
- Took 15 years to reach $10M revenue
- Focused on building machine-like business before expanding
- Achieved massive profitability through patience and focus
Sam Parr
Host of MFM and fitness influencer
Sam Parr is a serial entrepreneur and business media pioneer.
In 2016, he founded The Hustle, a business news media company that started in his kitchen with just $12 and grew to eight figures in revenue.
Sam led the charge in making newsletters popular when few believed in their potential.
After four successful years, he sold The Hustle to HubSpot, a publicly traded company. Now operating as HubSpot Media, The Hustle reaches 3 million readers daily, employs a team of nearly 100, and has been the launchpad for dozens of its staff to found their own media companies and newsletters.
Sam remains the host of the popular business podcast, My First Million, and continues to start and sell companies. He also co-founded Hampton, a highly vetted community for entrepreneurs, founders, and CEOs, and teaches people to write better through his platform, Copy That.