From MMA to ETA: Quality Revenue Helped Diego Cuenca Fight a Covid Slump

In the middle of COVID, when parking-garage volume was down 80%, Diego Cuenca, the first-time CEO of a parking garage tech platform called TickeTech, was feeling beat up.

 

Having acquired TicketTech just months earlier as part of an Entrepreneurship-Through-Acquisition (ETA) search-fund investment group, Cuenca was beginning to have visions of himself as leading “one of the worst search-fund outcomes in history,” he tells Search Party.

 

Fortunately, Cuenca had a background in both entrepreneurial and fighter perseverance. In his darkest moment - while hand-delivering tickets to empty garage clients - Cuenca, a former wrestler and mixed-martial arts (MMA) athlete, remembered advice from his coach: Just score the next point.

 

The TickeTech investment ended up becoming a success notable enough that Columbia Business School now has a case study on it. In this Search Party episode, Cuenca, now a second-time ETA searcher looking to acquire a business with high-quality revenue, shares his TicketTech story with Katie Walker, Principal at Plexus Capital, Tatiana Gaspar, a Director at Next Coast Legacy and host David Snow.

 

Among the key takeaways of this fascinating conversation:

 

Revenue quality beats everything. After guiding Ticketech through crisis and exit, Cuenca says his next search fund is centered on one principle: “The biggest lesson from TickeTech is revenue quality.” His fixation on recurring, durable cash flow reflects his realization in the wake of TickeTech turnaround that the company was saved by high-quality revenue.

 

Understanding the business before the balance sheet. Before ever studying accounting, while living in the Philippines as a child, Cuenca says he learned about cash flow from his Filipina mother businesswoman, who made him tag along to collect rent. “I think I understood yield very early,” he recalls. That grounding in practical economics later gave him a unique feel for operational risk and opportunity—skills that proved invaluable as a CEO.

 

Don’t chase someone else’s thesis. Early in his search career, Cuenca admits he “chased after the winds of the past,” following sectors that had already yielded investment successes, rather than overlooked sectors primed for growth. He now believes true advantage comes from differentiated focus: “It gives you a distinct advantage coming in as a new CEO.”

 

Follow Search Party on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/search-party-channel/

 

Search Party Lead Sponsor:

Next Coast Legacy https://lnkd.in/eSAuRW5p

 

Search Party Sponsors:

Avidbank https://www.avidbank.com/

Boulay – Contact Boulay's Search Fund Team: https://lnkd.in/eFF88SVf

Mayer Brown https://lnkd.in/gU7sPPSg

Oberle Risk Strategies https://oberle-risk.com/

Plexus Capital, LLC Capital https://plexuscap.com/