Private Equity FunCast

Jim talks with our old friend and colleague, Dirk Shimpach about the most common mistakes we make when implementing NetSuite.  We've done six implementations across six portfolio companies over the past five years -- so we've learned a thing or two about getting NetSuite up and running.   Dirk gives CEOs, Founders and CFOs a quick primer on the most common speed bumps and how to avoid them. We're...

Alan and Jim discuss DevOps -- the intersection of software development and managing the deployment and operations of software.  We provide a simple layman's definition of DevOps and then address common misconceptions and fears.   It's not fatal if you are not doing state-of-the-art DevOps or you haven't completed automated the build and deploy process.   Instead, we given you a simple set of sugg...

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.

Devin and Jim welcome their partner Kristina to her first podcast where they talk about how to run a good board meeting. Who to invite, what to cover, what to avoid and how to manage your PE board members.

Alan and Jim spend some time talking about tracking events and errors in application software logs.   Most  companies are at least monitoring their web logs and database error logs these days -- but we'd argue that this is just the tip of the iceberg.  With easy access to cloud platforms, cheap computer cycles and disk storage the time is right to up the ante.   Capturing user traffic and events a...

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 Fou...

Jim and Alan spend some quality time talking about the most common technology challenges that we uncover when we acquire a founder owned technology company. This is not a criticism of how these companies are run, but rather a testimony to how much a small team is able to accomplish when they put their minds to it. Given that we buy smaller companies that we end up selling to larger companies -- th...

Devin sits down with Chris Morgan, the founder of Lantern Partners, an executive search firm focused on hiring C-Suite executives at PE-backed companies. We cover how to get in the candidate flow, what characteristics are required for the job, how much you will get paid and other lessons from our collective experience looking for and hiring management teams. 

Alan and Jim spend some quality time talking about the Shiny New Toy problem (SNTS) in software development.   The tendency for software teams to pin their hopes and dreams on leading edge technology that will solve all of their problems -- easier, faster better.  We discuss the problem in detail and offer non-technical founders strategies for dealing with SNTS.

Jim and Alan spend a fast hour talking about technical debt.   It's everything that a CEO/CFO/COO or Founder needs to know about technical debt -- and how to start paying it down.   What causes technical debt?  Is technical debt the result of a bad development team?  Is it possible to develop a software platform without incurring technical debt?  Is the solution to technical debt a complete platfo...

Jim and Alan talk about the Cloud.   Private clouds versus public clouds.  Should you ditch your own server room and move everything to the Cloud?  Start small and build ... or go "all in" on the Cloud.   Can you control performance and scaling in the Cloud?  Relational databases or NoSQL in the Cloud.  In case that's not clear at this point, we'll be talking about the Cloud on this week's podcast...

Jim and Alan discuss the history and details of exchanging data between companies and applications.  Email might be the easiest and quickest technique, but find out what it's not very secure or reliable.  Learn about the differences between FTP (not very secure) and SFTP (pretty darn secure) and whether DropBox, Box or Amazon's S3 is a reasonable option.   Finally, we end up chatting about Web Ser...

Jim talks with Alan, Simon and Tiago about the myth of the full stack developer.   Alan plays the role of the database and webservices architect. Simon is the user interface and client-side maven and Tiago is our resident network, security and back-end guru.  We ask the key questions -- can any single developer master EVERY layer of the software stack?  Should a CEO or Engineering manager expect h...

Jim and Alan talk about the technology trends for 2016.   What's on the rise?  What technology is falling out of favor?  What will be the most hyped technology in 2016?  Jim asks the questions and Alan answers them on this latest episode of America's favorite technology-oriented, private-equity-themed, weekly podcast.  It's IoT, Elastic Search, MongoDB, RavenDB, Java, Cassandra, Hadoop, Ruby on Ra...

Jim spends a fast hour talking with the Developertown crew about all things mobile.  Should you develop native iOS and Android applications?   Is it better to standardize on responsive HTML5 solutions?   PhoneGap vs. Xamarin?   These are just a few of the questions that we discuss, plus, shout-outs to Angie's List Founder Angie Hicks and Angela Lansbury.   Also, we talk about the Roomba (spoiler a...

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.

The last of a four-part series.    Jim talks with Kamela Arya about the most common mistakes that companies make when implementing Salesforce.com.  

The third segment in our four-part series on Salesforce.com for the middle market.  In this episode Jim and Kamela talk about the implementation process.   Which department should be tackled first? Choosing your implementation partner and selecting your project team.  Implementing prototypes and incremental builds, mapping out business processes and migrating data into the new system.

Part two of our implementing Salesforce.com series. This time around we talk with Kamela Arya about which modules to license, how much they cost to license (on an annual basis), and what it costs to implement Salesforce.com in a mid-size organization, with 10 - 20 SFDC users. We even discuss the dreaded data migration problem.

Jim spends an hour with Developertown's Michael Kelly and Aaron Lerch talking about Ruby on Rails -- why Jim hates it and why they love it.