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Sarasota entrepreneur Jesse Biter has started two successful niche businesses in the auto industry, including one in sales-related software that grew to $16 million in revenues.
But cars and trucks have gotten a little stale to Biter, who has bought several buildings in and around downtown Sarasota for redevelopment, in retail and housing. He also owns the downtown Sarasota building that houses the HuB, a business incubator. “It became Groundhog day for me,” Biter tells Coffee Talk. “I was doing the same thing and seeing the same people at trade shows.”
For his next think-big, grow-fast company, Biter has turned to another niche: lien searches. He bought Professional Lien Search from Sarasota attorneys Evan Berlin and Jamie Ebling last October. The firm searches city or county finance departments, permit offices and utility departments to find fees, liens or assessments on properties. Clients are mostly real estate attorneys and title firms.
Under Berlin and Ebling the firm had done around 1,000 lien searches a month, with about 10 employees. The attorneys, with the Sarasota-based firm of Berlin Patten Ebling, founded the lien search firm in 2012.
Since October, under Biter, the firm has done about 3,500 lien searches a month, and now has 35 employees. A sales staff blankets the state, seeking new clients. The firm works out of the former IberiaBank building on Main Street in downtown Sarasota.
The title and lien search business, Biter has discovered, is mostly made up of small entities. To Biter, that's an opportunity to bring a process-based system to a company and grow it quickly. That's what he did with HomeNet Automotive, the software firm, which he sold to AutoTrader.com in 2010, and Dealers United, a national buyers group of auto dealers. Biter co-founded Dealers United in late 2011 with Sarasota auto executive Matt Buchanan. Dealers United is based out of office space in the HuB.
Biter plans to expand Professional Lien Search to more states in the near future. He also wants to hire several more employees. “This is exciting for me,” says Biter. “I'm learning a whole new business. It's fun.”
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