Private Equity Funcast

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!

A lengthy discussion with Alan Williamson on the "perfect technology stack".   In today's environment do you HAVE to be running on Linux, or is Windows Server just fine for some shops?   C# or Java?  Java or Ruby on Rails?  Should you be getting rid of all of your old perl and PHP code?  Is this the end for relational databases?  AngularJS or jQuery?

Alan and Jim talk about the ins and outs of making applications run faster and scale to handle lots of users.  We compare the two choices for scaling applications: Vertical scaling (adding more resources to existing machines), versus Horizontal scaling (spreading the load across multiple machines).  We also discuss Amazon's AWS and EC2 platforms versus Microsoft Azure.

Devin and Jim catalog all of the software that the ParkerGale team has been using on a daily basis over the past year.  We discuss the pros and cons of each, and tell you which apps have been moved to the trash bin.

Devin and Jim discuss the New York Times Amazon article.  Is driving your people into the ground the only way to build successful technology companies?  Is the CEO the last to know when it comes to company culture issues, or are they just turning a blind eye?

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.

Jim and Devin discuss the two types of companies that we see in the middle market.   You can either dominate a niche market (such as software targeted at specific verticals) or you can build a better mousetrap and try to capture the entire market.

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.

Jim talks in detail with Grant Hunter about the Product Manager role in middle market companies.

A gentle introduction to product management with Grant Hunter.

Jim and Devin discuss the Innovator's Dilemma and Blue Ocean Strategy as it relates to middle market portfolio companies.

Jim talks with Evan Delaney about his trip to Apple's World Wide Developer Conference in SF.

Devin and Jim talk about the role of leveraging microservices development in middle market companies, mixing classic development with microservices -- with proper shout outs to Martin Fowler, Conway's Law and a small sidebar into Game of Thrones.

Devin and Jim discuss the corollary to Fred Wilson's "What VC can learn from Private Equity".

Jim talks about the role of the outside board member with Syapse CEO/Co-Founder and Emerson Street Partners founder Glenn Winokur.

Jim and Devin talk about Agile, SCRUM and our experiences with various engineering project management schemes.

Devin and Jim talk about applying Howard Marks' principles of value investing in technology buyouts.

Jim chats with Evan Delaney about the out-of-the-box experience with the Apple Watch as the first batch gets delivered.

Quinn grills Devin and Jim on everything from their backgrounds to which kinds of potatoes that they prefer.

Jim, Devin and the Commissioner For Life, Ryan Milligan run down our 2015 Final Four results.