September 2021 - Development Corporate

September 30, 2021

How a Failed Zoom Due Diligence Call Led to a Disaster for a Firm That Had Raised Over $70 million in VC Funds

On Sunday, September 26th, Ben Smith from the New York Times published an article entitled “Goldman Sachs, Ozy Media and a $40 Million Conference Call Gone Wrong”. What followed was a bizarre tale of how the COO of Ozy Media started a Zoom due diligence call with Goldman Sachs, then switched to a conference call. On that call, Samir Rao, the co-founder and chief operating officer of Ozy, used a voice changer and impersonated Alex Piper, the head of unscripted programming for YouTube Originals. After the call Goldman figured out what had happened and the proverbial shit hit the fan. How were sophisticated investors deceived by Oxy Media?

September 30, 2021

Product Managers: Q3 is Ending. Are you Going to Miss Your Bonus Again?

As the third quarter draws to a close, many product managers are asking themselves “Am I going to miss my bonus again?” By the end of the third quarter, most product managers know where they are going to land in regards to their annual bonus. There are six tactics they can use to ensure they will not miss it again.

John Mecke Product Management

September 28, 2021

Privacy Debt is the New Technical Debt

Product managers deal with technical debt all the time. Privacy debt is the new technical debt. Privacy-related issues have become critical. In the United States in 2020 there were over 1,000 data breaches that exposed over 155 million records. Many of these breaches were due to vulnerabilities exposed by unaddressed technical debt. Privacy debt is now the new technical debt and its impact can be disastrous.

John Mecke Private Equity

September 26, 2021

How a 56 Second TikTok Video Disrupted 4,600 Scientific Research Projects

In July 2021 Sarah Frank, a rising freshman at Brown University, uploaded a 56 second TikTok video and disrupted 4,600 scientific research projects, Crowdsourced research has changed the landscape of academic and commercial market research. While the changes have been good, there are some dark aspects that need to be explored.

John Mecke Uncategorized

September 26, 2021

20 Product Management Memes for 2021, Volume 4

I belong to a Facebook Group called Product Management Memes. It has over 3,400 members and is simply a meme stash for product managers, marketers, and corporate life. People post amusing stuff every day. There’s no self-promotion or spam, just entertainment, Here are 20 of the most popular posts from the past few weeks based on likes and shares.

John Mecke Product Management

September 22, 2021

Bessemer Ventures Research: Scaling to $100 Million

Bessemer Ventures is one of the leading venture capitalist firms in the country. They recently published a great report Scaling to $100 Million that provinces detailed metrics about ARR, Growth, Retention, Gross Margins, CAC Paybacks, Free Cash Flow, and Valuations from over 200 of their cloud investments. The data analyzes firm performance by ARR revenue bucket from $1 million to $100 million.

John Mecke Private Equity

September 21, 2021

Tacos as a Service: Has XaaS Finally Jumped the Shark?

Has Anything-as-a-Service (XaaS). finally, gone too far? XaaS is clearly a trend that is here to stay. Many companies are jumping on the XaaS bandwagon in an attempt to boost their valuation. Product managers should be careful, however, of jumping on the bandwagon in an attempt to gain some marketing or valuation lift for their products.

John Mecke Product Management

September 18, 2021

Software Equity Group August 2021 SaaS Index Update

The Software Equity Group (SEG) regularly publishes quantitative research on the software and SaaS market M&A activity. In August, median valuations declined to lowest in 2021

John Mecke Corporate Development

September 16, 2021

Product Manager Intelligence on Steroids: The MoneyWheel & Win/Loss Analysis.

Growing revenues is a challenge every product manager faces. The combination of MoneyWheel Analysis and Win/Loss Analysis can provide product managers with unparalleled intelligence. It can help them make better fact-based decisions about feature prioritization, demand generation, and sales campaigns.

John Mecke Product Management

September 11, 2021

Todd Russell Hill 1967 – 2001

Todd Hill was an account executive with QRS Corporation. He passed away on September 11, 2001, when the Towers fell. Todd was staying on the 17th floor of the Marriott Hotel at the World Trade Center. Todd was known for hearty laugh, effervescent smile, competitive spirit and the great corn cob he’d make for cookouts. Todd was never recovered and his name is inscribed on panel S-46 of the 9/11 Memorial in New York City.

John Mecke Private Equity