The Life of a Start-Up: VOMO
This episode of Get Vertical! with Mike McCalley features Rob Peabody, co-founder of VOMO, a volunteer mobilization platform that was acquired by Virtuous in 2022. Peabody shares the full arc of VOMO's journey — from conception as a church pastor in London to scaling a SaaS product and ultimately selling the business. The conversation highlights the critical role of investor relationships, fundraising, and team-building in startup survival.
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Key takeaways
Only 18% of entrepreneurs successfully launch their startups; relationship-building with investors and team members is a key differentiator for those who survive.
Rob Peabody conceived VOMO in 2015 after recognizing that volunteer recruitment for nonprofits could be digitized via smartphone platforms, eventually growing it into a SaaS business acquired by Virtuous in 2022.
Peabody spent approximately 50% of his time fundraising throughout VOMO's entire lifecycle, underscoring how capital-intensive scaling a SaaS and exchange platform can be.
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Here's a hard truth: only 18% of entrepreneurs successfully launch their start-ups. Most of these lucky few individuals would probably tell you that the road to success isn't rosy. An entrepreneur's ability to connect, build, and maintain high-quality relationships with their team and investors is key to making it past the first few years of owning a business.
But what does it really take to go from ideation to selling your business in 2022?
On this episode of Get Vertical with Mike McCalley, host Mike McCalley is joined by Rob Peabody, Co-Founder and President of VOMO and VP of Category Growth with Virtuous. The two discuss the tumultuous life of a start-up and the journey towards success in today's economic climate.
While living in London as a pastor, Peabody realized he was doing a lot of work to recruit volunteers for non-profits. He figured that this process would work better virtually to meet the needs of nonprofits and match the interests of their target audiences. VOMO, which stands for volunteer mobilization, grew from this realization.
Peabody explained, "I was studying digital platforms and just reading about technology and, you know, all the crazy stats about smartphone usage and platform society, and the 'Aha!' was like, wow could we leverage the power of technology right now in this cultural moment to get people to go do what we've been trying to do through manual processes…?"
Could we leverage the power of technology right now in this cultural moment to get people to go do what we've been trying to do through manual processes?
— Rob Peabody, Co-Founder and President of VOMO
Peabody's journey includes:
- How long it took VOMO to go from an idea to launch
- Why and how liquidating assets helped VOMO take the next leap
- What it takes to build a start-up from a "seedling" to sold
Peabody notes that, "once we started needing to scale and hire all, especially with an exchange platform, and SaaS platform like we have, you know, you gotta spend all the money to market to get the leads, and then sales folks, and then you've got to support it with all of the CS, customer success side of it, and then you've got all the engineers that are building everything, so the team just grows! I was spending probably 50% of my time fundraising the entire journey of VOMO."
I was spending probably 50% of my time fundraising the entire journey of VOMO.
— Rob Peabody, Co-Founder and President of VOMO
Rob Peabody started his journey in the church where he worked as a College and Campus Pastor at Lake Pointe Church for five years before moving to London as a Global City Leader for the International Mission Board. Since getting the idea in 2015, Peabody has helped grow the start-up VOMO from seedling to sale. He is now the VP of Category Growth for Virtuous, a software company that acquired VOMO in 2022.
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About the author
Mike is a leading marketer with expertise ranging from start up ventures to fortune 50 companies. With a passion for B2B and community building, Mike has evolved how traditional companies go to market and truly educate, inform, and inspire their community. When Mike isn't building out media and strategy plans for companies you can find him announcing his local high school football games and spending time with his family in Plano, TX.
