From Combat to Classrooms: How Jim Vesterman Went from Special Forces to a 13.5x Return in 8 Years

This week, I was thrilled to be joined by Jim Vesterman, currently a lecturer at the The Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania. Prior to joining the faculty at Wharton, Jim was the CEO of Raptor Technologies between 2012 to 2020, where he grew the company from serving 7,000 schools to serving over 40,000 schools selling K-12 school safety software.

Jim sold the company to JMI Equity, returning an astounding a 13.5x MOIC and 53% IRR to his investors. Prior to his time as an entrepreneur and CEO, Jim served in the United States Marine Corps in the Special Operations forces, serving his country in Iraq in 2004, and earning the Combat Action Ribbon and the Navy & Marine Corps Achievement medal.

In our discussion today, among other things we cover:

- Whether he felt truly prepared to be a CEO
- Why he's so compelled to continually push himself to his limits
- Why he decided to extend his search for a business to buy into a third year
- The major operational decisions that drove his hugely successful outcome
- How he now thinks about investing in software companies in light of his experience running one
- Whether difficult professional experiences now seem trivial in light of his experience in the military and special forces
- What people might not understand about the idea of “making it”
- Areas of his professional life in which he still feels less sure of himself
- ...And much, much more

A link to the post is below. Please enjoy!

From Combat to Classrooms: How Jim Vesterman Went from Special Forces to a 13.5x Return in 8 Years