Private equity EV/Revenue multiples have increased 70% since 2000. They averaged 10.3x for the first three quarters of 2018 versus 6.6x in 2000. AS a result of these higher valuation expectations, the traditional private equity playbook of acquire, cost restructuring, and flip based on financial engineering are being disrupted by growth equity PE players like Vista who demonstrated the success of this model through the acquisition and sale of Marketo. Vista acquired a struggling Marketo in 2016 for $1.75B, improved it, and sold to Adobe a little more than two years later for $4.75B.
John Mecke
About John Mecke
http://developmentcorporate.com
John Mecke is the Managing Director of DevelopmentCorporate, a consultancy focused on mid-market and enterprise scale software firms. We specialize in product management and corporate development.
He has over 20 years of experience in leading product management organizations for mid-market and enterprise software firms. His background covers both traditional licensed software as well as SaaS applications. While he has experience in startup and early stage companies, he primarily focuses on established firms and the challenges they face in growing revenues, profits, and enterprise value.
He has significant experience in corporate development. John has led four major acquisitions with a total value of $175M. Conducted eight divestitures which generated $24.5M in cash. Played a critical role in producing a $115M dividend for investors, a 2.8x return on the investment in less than three years. He has evaluated over 500 companies for acquisition and conducted over 50 due diligence projects. John has served public companies, private companies, and companies backed by private equity investors.
Posts by John Mecke:
Marketo: A Growth PE Success Story
By John Mecke in Uncategorized No Comments
A post about how Vista Equity’s $1.79 billion purchase of Marketo turned into a $4.75 billion exit to Adobe in a little more than two years. They didn’t use the tradition tech private equity playbook.
Dear Agile, I’m Tired of Pretending
By John Mecke in Product Management No Comments
Charles Lambdin recently published a piece on Medium titled “Dear Agile, I’m Tired of Pretending”. In the post Charles talks about his frustrations with the current state of Agile practice.
I Made My Shed the Top-Rated Restaurant on TripAdvisor . . . And then served customers frozen dinners on its opening night.
By John Mecke in Product Management No Comments
The story of the infamous Shed at Dulwich is a great example of how Internet marketing techniques can scam the unsuspecting public. The Shed at Dulwich was a fake restaurant created by Oobah Butler to prove the gullibility of today’s Internet user. I have been involved in technology marketing and sales for almost 20 years. […]
Features vs Technical Debt: An Agile Product Management Balancing Act
By John Mecke in Uncategorized No Comments
Product Managers and Product Owners face a constant challenge of balancing priorities. New features or technical debt elimination? The priorities between feature creation and technical debt elimination change as a product moves through its’ evolution.. This post talks about technical debt and some best practices to help teams manage it.
Software Equity Group 3Q18 SaaS M&A Update
By John Mecke in Uncategorized No Comments
The Software Equity Group has published their 3Q18 SaaS M&A Update. SEG regularly publishes comprehensive free research on the state of M&A in the tech space. It is invaluable resource in tracing the key trends and development in the market. A few of the key findings include: Aggregate software industry M&A deal volume (including SaaS, […]
VendorBumper.com
By John Mecke in Private Equity, Product Management No Comments
I am launching a new side gig today vendorbumper.com. We provide research reports on software companies for buyers looking to build a basic profile of a firm or for marketers looking to update their competitive analysis. Gartner notes that buyers complete 70% of their buying journey before contacting sales. Unfortunately buyers often need to provide […]
Product Managers: Change the Top of the Sales Funnel: Trigger Driven Prospecting
By John Mecke in Product Management 2 Comments
The objective of this post is to talk about a new strategy for filling the top of the sales funnel with valuable opportunities. The harsh reality is that only a fraction of the mid-market and enterprise scale companies in today’s market will purchase and implement a major new software solution. As Gartner has noted, buyers are completing 70% of their buying journey before contacting a sales rep. Research shows the odds of winning the sale are 74% when you reach decision makers at the right time and help set their buying vision. This post talks about the types of triggers that lead to customers starting a process to identify and evaluate new solutions.
35 Crucial Stats Every B2B Sales Professional Should Know
By John Mecke in Uncategorized No Comments
Another installment of great research from OpenView Venture Partners. A few examples: 15. Leads responded to within 5 minutes are 100X more likely to be contacted and 21X more likely to be qualified (LeadResponseManagement.org) 16. Waiting just 10 minutes to respond drops the likelihood of qualifying the lead 4X (LeadResponseManagement.org) 17. Yet less than 25% […]
Free Website Chat. A Great Product Led Growth Story
By John Mecke in Uncategorized No Comments
Today I experienced one of the best new product implementations since I got my first iPhone. I installed the Drift chat capability on my website developmentcorporate.com. Their entry level offering is free forever. It took me 10 minutes from start to finish and it worked right out of the box. I do not expect that people are dying to chat with me about calculating the enterprise value of private companies or open source competitive intelligence for product managers. But chat would be a cool feature.