Private Equity Funcast

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 -- these are the most technology issues that we need to address during our ownership period. We both have a pragmatic view of how difficult it is to keep all of these systems/processes up to date -- we don't let good become the enemy of great.

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 platform rewrite or can you pay it down without "dry docking the boat"?  These are just a few of the questions that we answer on today's show.

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.  Plus, West Wing, NYPD Blue, Kelly's Heroes.  Kiefer and Donald Sutherland in Foresaken.   Take a pass on "Assassin".   Spoiler alert: We're both passing on the trifecta of remakes; Point Break, Roadhouse and Ghostbusters.

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 Services as the modern developer's tool for exchanging data securely, reliably and in Goldilocks sizes (hint: Just Right).  Shout outs to Dropbox, Box, Amazon and HighJump.  Plus Jim goes one for three in Alan's movie quiz.

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 his/her developers to be knowledgeable about every piece of software?  We also learn that Alan hates art and white wine, but likes red wine. Plus shout outs to the Back to the Future trilogy, Poland, La Sardine in the West Loop and Ocean's Eleven.

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 Rails, Node.js, PostgreSQL, jQuery, Angular, Amazon RDS and even the Apple Watch! Plus, shout out for Carson McCullers "The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter"

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 alert ... it's awesome).

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.