Devin and Jim were inspired to delve into the "Ship of Theseus" story in the first episode from season two of Gladwell's "Revisionist History". If we change out every "board" (no pun intended) in our companies over our ownership period -- is it the same company/ship when we exit?
Rebroadcast of Brian Walker from AE Marketing Group interviewing partner Kristina Heinze-- talking about leadership, women in private equity and branding.
Devin sits down with Myra D’Souza, ParkerGale’s head of talent management. They cover how to get into private equity from the HR side of the house; what PE firms do about human capital pre and post-deal; and how small companies can be better at talent management.
An introduction to customer analytics with Ben Falloon and Jake Petoskey from the ParkerGale team. The first of several episodes tackling the tricky topic of building ground-up customer analytics and building market maps.
Jim and Devin sit down with ParkerGale Principal Jake Petoskey to discuss his path to private equity thru the operating side of the house. Similar to past episodes with Cass and Kevin we cover all the details for how to get into PE, but this time without the traditional finance background.
Limited Partner, John McCarthy, is back for another book club episode. This time we talk about Daniel Kahneman's Thinking Fast and Slow -- and how it applies to private equity. Try listening to this episode with your System 2 thinking.
By popular demand ... it's our annual March Madness Episode from two guys that know nothing about college basketball but love bracketology. It's the Elite Eight -- Lou Adler vs. Daniel Pink, Geoffrey Moore vs. Strunk & White, Malcolm Gladwell vs. Dan Carlin and HBR vs. Kara Swisher.
Limited Partner Mike McClure sits down for a discussion about the other side of the fundraising table. We cover: the first meeting, following up and what can set you apart from all the other GPs in the market.
Over the past year we've changed out a number of tools and software that we use to manage the fund. Come have a listen and find out what things we've moved off of and our new favorites. Spoiler alert: Contactually, Microsoft Office 365, Egnyte, NetSuite, Squarespace, Intralinks ... and Basecamp.
ParkerGale is looking to add three professional to our team -- two Principals focused on Operations and one Associate for the Investment team. Take a listen to find out if you (or someone you know) is a good fit.
The latest episode in our Fundraising series. We spend an hour talking with John Cosgrove from Beartooth Advisors - the team that worked as our agents on the ParkerGale fund. Come have listen and find out how Beartooth approached our fundraising process and learn all the ins and outs of working with an agent. (This is an updated version -- fixed the audio from the original release)
Jim and Devin spend an hour talking with Jay Bartlett and Scott Orleck from Parthenon-EY Ernst & Young LLP. We've worked extensively with Jay and Scott on buy-side due-diligence projects over a number of years. They share their experiences tackling questions workig with us around market sizing, growth rates, cyclicality, and the competitive landscape. All of which serves to answer the fundamental questions: Is a particular industry a good industry in which to invest? And is the target company the right company to buy? Jay and Scott reveal the three main reasons why deals go bad.
The second episode of our trifecta covering the raising of ParkerGale's first fund. This episode starts off where we left our intrepid heroes just after their first close in September, 2015. Come have a listen as we talk about our decision to hire a placement agent and our marathon of trips in late winter/early spring in pursuit of capital.
Devin and ParkerGale Limited Partner John McCarthy continue their book club series with an investing classic, "The Most Important Thing" by Howard Marks, the legendary cofounder and Chairman of Oaktree Capital Management. Turns out that Marks most important thing is actual nineteen things -- come have a listen as Devin and John focus on three of them.
Devin and ParkerGale Limited Partner John McCarthy kick off their book club series with an unusual choice, "Rumsfeld's Rules: Leadership Lessons in Business, Politics, War, and Life" by Donald Rumsfeld. Some surprising advice in this book when we apply Rumsfeld's observations about leadership, business, and life to investing.
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.