John Mecke

About John Mecke

http://developmentcorporate.com

JJohn is a 25 year veteran of the enterprise technology market. He has led six global product management organizations for three public companies and three private equity-backed firms. He played a key role in delivering a $115 million dividend for his private equity backers – a 2.8x return in less than three years. He has led five acquisitions for a total consideration of over $175 million. He has led eight divestitures for a total consideration of $24.5 million in cash. John regularly blogs about product management and mergers/acquisitions.

Posts by John Mecke:

The 20th Anniversary of the Minimum Viable Product: What Happened?

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MVP Concept

The Minimal Viable Product (MVP) celebrates its 20th anniversary in 2021. The concept was introduced by Frank Robinson in 2001. Steve Blank expanded on it in 2005 with the Customer Development Methodology. In 2011 Eric Reis popularized the MVP concept in his book The Lean Startup. Since 2001 there have been several attempts to improve on the core MVP concept. Like all breakthrough technology concepts, people just can’t leave good enough alone. Think Agile and SAFe, What has happened to the MVP on its 20th anniversary?

Why is a $120 million ARR SaaS Company Worth $7 Billion?

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VC Funding

SaaS valuations are at an almost all-time high. The Software Equity Group reported that the median EV/Revenue multiple for public SaaS companies in Q2 2021 was 14.3x. The top 25 SaaS companies in the SEG SaaS Index had EV/Revenue valuations that ranged from 25.3x (Sprout Social) to 90.4x (Snowflake). While Gong’s most recent valuation of $7 billion on $120 million ARR is high – 60.4x – it is not unreasonable. Gong has shown consistent high revenue growth coupled with a strong ROI for its customers.

Product Managers: How to Survive an Acquisition

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M&A

Acquisitions are challenging times for product managers. On the one hand, they can provide an opportunity for career growth. They can also result in the elimination of a product manager’s job.. Product managers are uniquely positioned to be very valuable during the M&A process. M&A projects can be stressful,. Product managers should learn how to survive an acquisition.

Why Do Product Manager Value Equations Suck?

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product manager snake oil

Value equations describe the quantitative and qualitative benefits a customer can receive from implementing a software product. They answer the buyer’s inevitable question “What’s in it for me?” Recently I worked with a SaaS company that had what I considered to be a cool product. They struggled to crisply and credibly explain what value customers would get. They relied on generic statements like reducing customer churn and increasing productivity. When asked to back up their statements with hard numbers and credible customer success stories they drew a blank. Most product managers are in the same boat

The Ugly Truth of B2B SaaS Customer Acquisition Costs

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ugly truth

Acquiring customers is the biggest challenge any B2B software company has. Unless you are lucky enough to have an award-winning solution that sells itself like the mythical product-led growth companies (Slack, Dropbox, and Expensify), you have to grind it out like everyone else. The ugly truth of B2B SaaS customer acquisition cost is that you need to fill the top of your sales funnel with hundreds of thousands of suspects to get a reasonable number of closed sales.

Why Product Managers Should Care About Enterprise Value

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EV

Understanding Enterprise Value can help product managers in many ways. It can help you understand how your product contributes (or doesn’t contribute) to your company’s overall success. It can help you justify more investment in your product when you can explain how the investment will grow Enterprise Value

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