Devin and Jim spend an hour talking about the strategy and tactics of raising ParkerGale's first fund. This episode covers the pre-launch up to the fund's first close.
Devin sits down with Jeremie Bacon, CEO and Founder of Synap, to discuss Private Equity, Managing People and Movie Quotes.
The first of many conversations with Brian Walker CEO of AE Marketing Group. We've found that Marketing is often the third wheel at small companies -- behind product development and sales. Brian's team takes a CoCreation and Customer Experience approach to building and marketing products that gets the marketing function heavily involved in improving operations and products. So, come have a listen!
We all know there are tons of Private Equity funds. So what are the ways they try to stand out from the crowd? We cover the four biggies: Focus, Size, Sourcing and Team.
Alan, Jim and Kristina talk about a rare phenomenon in technology -- slowing down sales -- intentionally! Faced with the need to undertake some major software refactoring, we chose to put the cap on new sales while we raced to update the platform. This caused real tension between the board, sales management and the engineering team. Come have a listen as we talk about the details of this successful effort.
Devin and Jim discuss the seven deadly sins of private equity -- sins that will turn a good deal into a bad deal.
-- Pride: Don't admit what you don't know.
-- Envy: Make a bad acquisition.
-- Lust: Overpaying for a deal.
-- Greed: Trying to do too much, too fast.
-- Wrath: Market turns on you.
-- Gluttony: Taking on too much debt.
-- Sloth: Failing to move fast enough on management problems.
Devin interviews podcast darling Kevin Fitzgerald on his return to private equity after two years at Harvard Business School. Kevin talks about why he went, what he learned, how he landed his summer internship, how much the whole thing cost and whether or not getting and MBA was even worth it. Just like his last podcast talking about the Associate job, Kevin spills the beans on business school and returning to the industry as Principal.
Devin and Jim spend some time talking about the "Failure Mythology" -- the idea that you need to fail in a big way on the path to building a great company. (Aka "The Steve Jobs Story") It's a popular myth in the venture space, but not at all common for private equity deals.
Small change of pace. Here's a replay of Kristina's WGN Business Lunch interview talking about private equity, being a mom and other fun stuff.
Devin sits down with Dave Will, the founder of Peach New Media, a software company he founded, bootstrapped and recently sold to AccelKKR. Dave gets philosophical about building culture and stepping aside after the sale. A good listen for founders and CEOs alike. We’ll definitely have Dave back to chat more.
Devin and Jim talk about Unicorns -- not the mythical horse with
a horn, but rather
the club of billion-dollar-plus tech companies. How is this market
different than the late 90s?
How do Unicorns affect buyouts and smaller companies, both
positively and negatively? These
are just a few of the questions we discuss on today's show.
It's our annual March Madness show. Hosted by two guys that don't know a THING about college basketball -- so our March Madness is all about Private Equity. This year we are starting with the Elite Eight and working our way down to one winner. It's EBITDA Multiples versus Revenue Multiples, Debt versus No Debt, Private Equity Owned Businesses versus Founder Owned Businesses and Backing the Founder versus Bringing in your own CEO. Come join Devin, Jim and the Commissioner -- Ryan Milligan as we argue our way to a winner.
Description: Cass Gunderson recently joined ParkerGale as an Associate so we check in with her about how she landed the job, what she did before she joined us and talk about her early reactions to the new job. From time to time we'll follow-up to see how Cass is doing.
Second part of our two-episode series on the Operating Partner role in private equity. In this second episode Devin and Jim talk about engaging with the portfolio companies and their management teams on projects and initiatives. At the end of the day there are only three types of projects that we work on; cost cutting/efficiency, revenue enhancements and risk mitigation.
First part of a two-part episode focused on the vaunted "Operating Partner" role in private equity. In the first part, Devin talks to Jim about his experiences as an operating partner within a private equity group -- dealing with the other partners, working on deal teams, etc.
Devin and Jim finally cover the most important thing a PE fund can do -- find deals. They cover how they source deals, the banks and brokers they target. Plus they talk about their lifelong search for the white whale -- the elusive proprietary deal. Do they really exist? Listen and find out!
Jim talks with Ryan Milligan about all the different steps in closing a deal after the Letter of Intent gets signed. Everything that a Founder needs to know, but was afraid to ask. Customer calls, references, accounting audits, purchase agreements and lender meetings -- we tackle it all and more.
Ryan Milligan joins Jim and Devin to talk about Unicorns and argue about whether the public markets are smarter than the private markets. For the founder with a business between $3 - $5 million of EBITDA we answer the mult-million dollar question: Is it time to sell? Ryan discloses that he'd invest in the next round of PiedPiper, while Devin would rather own Hooli stock.
Devin and Jim discuss the corollary to Fred Wilson's "What VC can learn from Private Equity".
Devin and Jim talk about applying Howard Marks' principles of value investing in technology buyouts.
Quinn grills Devin and Jim on everything from their backgrounds to which kinds of potatoes that they prefer.
Jim and Devin discuss the technology stack that we use to run our business.
Devin, Ryan Harris, Ian Larkin and Brad Simmons make their predictions for 2015 ... and BEYOND!
Devin and Jim give thanks for all of our listeners, colleagues and friends.
Jim and Devin talk about the various exit strategies for private equity-backed tech companies.