LeadEngage: From lawn sprinklers to a 300-customer SaaS business
How Wade Lester turned 17 years of blue-collar grit, a dream he shared with his late father and one API integration into $375K in recurring revenue on HighLevel.
Summary
Wade Lester built LeadEngage, a middleware SaaS on HighLevel that connects Follow Up Boss with HighLevel's texting, automation and AI features through API integrations. In three years, he grew from a free beta to nearly 300 paying customers and $375K in gross revenue with zero ad spend, earning a Gold SaaSPRENEUR award while still working part-time as a real estate agent.
HighLevel Products used
SaaS Mode (white-label reselling)
API integrations (middleware connections)
Workflow automation
Conversation AI
Two-way SMS and unified inbox
WhatsApp, Facebook and Instagram messaging
Forms and funnels
Missed call text back
Power dialer
CRM and pipeline management
Gross revenue growth across three years on HighLevel
Active paying customers across three recurring tiers ($149 to $297/mo)
Year-over-year revenue growth from 2024 to 2025
Lifetime spend on paid advertising. Every customer came through organic community presence
The Challenge
A commission treadmill, an unfinished dream and a CRM that couldn't text
Before LeadEngage, Wade Lester was a top-producing real estate agent in Georgia chasing the same thing every commission-based professional chases. Predictable revenue.
He had already built and sold a 20-employee irrigation company. He had already watched his father pass away before the two of them could bring Mortgenius, a mortgage software tool they built together, to market. He knew he wanted to build software. He just didn't know how.
Meanwhile, his real estate CRM (Follow Up Boss) had a gap thousands of agents complained about. No automated outbound texting. Switching platforms meant losing years of contacts, workflows and muscle memory. So agents stayed and worked around it manually.
Wade was one of them.
Income that reset to zero every Monday
Real estate commissions offer no floor. A strong month could be followed by silence. Seventeen years of entrepreneurship taught Wade how to grind. None of it taught him how to build recurring revenue.
A CRM gap with no solution in sight
Follow Up Boss users wanted automated texting. Follow Up Boss didn't offer it. Agents were stuck choosing between a CRM they loved and a feature they needed.
No technical background to build software
Wade had never written a line of code. His first business ran on shovels and trucks. His real estate career ran on calls and handshakes. Building a SaaS product felt out of reach.
"My dad and I started a company called Mortgenius. He was the engineer behind the whole product. Unfortunately, he had gotten sick with cancer and passed away. That has really inspired me to start a software company. I'm not a software guy, and HighLevel has really made that possible for me." — Wade Lester
The Solution
One API, two open platforms and a product that let agents keep the CRM they already loved
Wade Lester was introduced to HighLevel before SaaS Mode existed. Wade started using it for his own real estate marketing. Power dialer. Missed call text back. Automations. Then he noticed something.
HighLevel had an open API. So did Follow Up Boss.
Two open APIs meant two systems could talk to each other. Wade didn't need to convince agents to abandon their CRM. He could plug HighLevel's capabilities directly into the tool they already used.
He built the first version on Make.com. No code. No developer. Just logic flows connecting two platforms. A small beta group of friends and community members tested it free and told him what broke.
Once validated, LeadEngage launched with three subscription tiers. $149 per month for automated texting and two-way messaging. $197 for workflow automations, forms and funnels. $297 for the full white-labeled HighLevel platform integrated back into Follow Up Boss.
The acquisition strategy was just as focused. Wade showed up in the Follow Up Boss and HighLevel Facebook communities every day. Answered questions. Built relationships. Let the product speak for itself.
"Find the pain of the business, give them the solution, and then you can upsell the other features once they get comfortable with the one feature," Wade says.
"If you can think it, you can do it." — Wade Lester
The Results
$375K in year three, a Gold award and a customer base that survived a full platform shutdown
In year one, LeadEngage cleared $62,108 in gross revenue. The goal was simple: cover overhead and one assistant's salary. Every customer came from the Follow Up Boss community.
Year two more than doubled it to $172,281. Wade hired a developer, transitioned from no-code to production-grade infrastructure on Google Cloud and grew the customer base entirely through word of mouth.
Year two also nearly killed the business. A bad actor exploited a security misconfiguration during the migration. A crypto miner hijacked the Google Cloud account. Google shut everything down. 150 customers went dark.
Wade sent an apologetic email expecting the worst. The response proved something no revenue number could. The trust he had built through years of community presence was real. Customers understood. Nobody left.
Year three hit $375,372 in gross revenue. Nearly 300 active paying customers. A Gold SaaSPRENEUR award. A team of three full-time employees. And still zero dollars spent on advertising.
Year-three gross revenue
Up 118% year over year. Built entirely through organic community presence in the Follow Up Boss and HighLevel Facebook groups. Zero ad spend.
Active paying customers
Spread across $149, $197 and $297 monthly tiers. Every customer acquired organically through community engagement and word of mouth.
From free beta to Gold SaaSPRENEUR
Starting from a no-code prototype on Make.com. Scaled to production-grade code, a team of three and nearly $400K in annual gross revenue.
Part-time
Gold SaaSPRENEUR award
Earned while still operating as a part-time real estate agent. Wade splits his time roughly 50/50 between real estate and building SaaS.
"I sent an apologetic email to my customers, and nobody was upset. They actually were understanding and knew me and knew what I was doing." — Wade Lester
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Disclaimer: The results shared in this case study reflect the experience of one HighLevel user and are not typical or representative of what other users may achieve. LeadEngage's growth and revenue outcomes are specific to their unique business model, market and execution. Revenue figures represent gross revenue during the stated period and do not reflect expenses or net profit. HighLevel makes no representations, warranties or guarantees regarding potential earnings, client growth or business success. This content is for illustrative and informational purposes only and does not constitute a business opportunity, franchise offering or earnings guarantee. Past performance does not predict future results and individual results will vary significantly.
