
SaaS Interviews with CEOs, Startups, Founders How TitanX Hit $9.7M ARR After Buying IP for $200K
Mar 25, 2026
Joey Gilkey, founder and CEO of TitanX and former enterprise seller, bought Phone Ready Leads IP and scaled it into a $9.7M ARR business. He discusses buying IP to move faster than building, the proprietary phone-intent signals and AI moat, high-ACV pricing and expansion-driven growth, and how strategic acquisitions accelerated revenue.
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Buying IP To Protect A Services Business
- Joey bought a piece of IP in August 2023 originally to protect a fractional services business and license it there.
- He realized the tech was "dark magic," shut down the services company, and pivoted the IP into TitanX for scale.
Speed Arbitrage Of Buying IP
- The $200K up-front plus $800K seller note purchase turned into a company valued near $100M.
- Joey frames this as speed arbitrage: buying IP bought time versus building from scratch and accelerated go-to-market.
Human Plus Tech Made The Data Scalable
- TitanX combines a technical process plus human-in-the-loop signals to make phone-intent data scalable and cheaper.
- Joey optimized the acquired tech to be faster, cheaper, and effective at scale versus its original tech-enabled-service form.
