What does it really take to build and scale a tech company?

In this episode of Scaling Stories Unfiltered, Christian Nagele, founder of CentraStage and now Chief Strategy Officer at inforcer, shares the full, unfiltered journey from remortgaging his house and hiring his first team, to acquisition, merger, IPO and beyond.

This one isn’t about overnight success. It’s about building value the long way,  through resilience, timing, and learning as you go.

What you'll learn in this episode:

• Why Christian started CentraStage and how they survived the 2008 crash
• The honest realities of fundraising and why they skipped VCs
• How CentraStage was acquired, then scaled globally
• What IPO really looked like and how it felt to no longer be CEO
• The importance of fit when hiring and walking away from the wrong customers
• Why “there’s no perfect path” and why that’s a good thing

From garage startup to a global tech IPO, this is a story of calculated risk, loyal teams, and what happens when you stay in the game long enough to see the long game pay off.

Listen in for a grounded, insightful conversation for founders navigating scale ups.

Who is Christian Nagele?

Christian began his career as a Chartered Accountant at PwC but was drawn to entrepreneurial businesses. He co-founded CentraStage in 2007, a cloud-based endpoint management startup that scaled through the financial crash and was acquired by Autotask in 2014. That business later merged with Datto, which IPO’d in 2020 on the NYSE. After a stint helping grow and sell British tech company 1E, he’s now CSO at Inforcer, helping shape the future of the MSP space.

You'll find Christian here:
 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/christiannagele/

Contact us: Hello@scalingstoriesunfiltered.com

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