6 ms·

I’m curious about your career path. Did you start by doing it in-house and then go into consulting? Are you at a big consultancy or do you run your own specialt

by paulgb 4y ago

I’m curious about your career path. Did you start by doing it in-house and then go into consulting? Are you at a big consultancy or do you run your own specialty DD consultancy?

mbesto 4y ago
I love this question since my career path is so irregular. It'll take some time so lemme write a more detailed response in a bit.
- thiago_fm 4y ago
  Also interested on your answer. I'd love to work on this full-time!
  - yamtaddle 4y ago
    Thirding. I've done a little of this as part of a job a while back and I think I'd really like doing more of it. Curious what kind of demand-volume there is for it, and especially if there are any adjacent services that people are willing to pay for (e.g. more social, looking into the management & process side of a tech org). Avenues for breaking in with sales for this, that kind of thing, would be greatly appreciated.
mbesto 4y ago
I'll answer this in two parts: Me: I personally have a very atypical career so please take this with a grain of salt. That being said, I think my weird background helped me to excel in this space Here is my professional background - SAP Consultant working for SAP (Data Analytics & Reporting) - (Entrepreneur) Web Design Agency (failed) - SAP Consulting (3rd Party Partner) - (Entrepreneur) Startup (failed) - Management Consulting (we were doing about ~15 IT Due Diligence projects a year when I joined) - Left previous firm and started my own firm (Renna Partners), which exclusively focused on IT/Tech DDs (previous firm did IT strategy + DD was a small part of the overall biz) - Sold my firm to my competitor (Crosslake), which is who I work for now Experience that led to this type of work: I started as a consultant in SAP's support group. Oddly, at a young age this gave me exposure to the technical/operational challenges of M&A as I sat in on a high profile customer who bought SAP and BOBJ integrated products before the company merged, and then had to deal with the companies/tech talk to each other post close. This was more "in the trenches" than it was strategic, but it help formulate how I thought about the strategy of M&A for companies. I then taught myself to code when I tried doing a web design agency and a startup. Failed miserably, but gave me a ton of empathy about what its like to be a (1) a founder (2) an engineer and (3) a business operator. After my last startup failed, I called an old friend of mine and luckily they were hiring. Their IT DD practice was small (it was 1-2 people) but growing. I came on and basically acted as a junior partner with one of the partners who led the practice. We quickly grew that to supporting ~100 deals/year. The company wasn't strategic about the work (they wanted large scale IT strategy gigs), so we split off and I start my own firm that focused solely in on IT/Tech DD. I then sold that company to my biggest competitor. I'm now an MD/Executive at that firm. My experience with hands on development, owning/operating a business, M&A, mix of enterprise software + implementation, and consulting (this can't be understated, there is a ton of value in knowing "how to be a consultant") is probably what really helped me excel in this space. Oh and now that I've sold a company myself, I have even more perspective :) Typical person: There are usually two types of personas that fit well: career consultants in tech M&A (think E&Y, West Monroe, KPMG, etc.) and operational leaders (e.g. seasoned CTOs, VP of Engineering, Head of Product, etc.). People who have done both are IDEAL. Personally I look for "athletes" or T-Shaped people. You need to be able to get very technical and then translate this to a financial person who doesn't know the difference between Java and JavaScript, which is a very unique skill in itself. P.S. I have a huge demand Product people (market + technical) who want to help do Product Due Diligence + Product Strategy consulting. Please reach out if you're interested.
- mbesto 4y ago
  Here is a link if you want to apply: https://jobs.lever.co/crosslaketech/7b2e42ec-d873-443f-b30f-20d37dbdf51c https://jobs.lever.co/crosslaketech/7b2e42ec-d873-443f-b30f-...

by paulgb 4y ago

I’m curious about your career path. Did you start by doing it in-house and then go into consulting? Are you at a big consultancy or do you run your own specialty DD consultancy?

mbesto 4y ago

I love this question since my career path is so irregular. It'll take some time so lemme write a more detailed response in a bit.

thiago_fm 4y ago
Also interested on your answer. I'd love to work on this full-time!
- yamtaddle 4y ago
  Thirding. I've done a little of this as part of a job a while back and I think I'd really like doing more of it. Curious what kind of demand-volume there is for it, and especially if there are any adjacent services that people are willing to pay for (e.g. more social, looking into the management & process side of a tech org). Avenues for breaking in with sales for this, that kind of thing, would be greatly appreciated.

mbesto 4y ago

I'll answer this in two parts: Me: I personally have a very atypical career so please take this with a grain of salt. That being said, I think my weird background helped me to excel in this space Here is my professional background - SAP Consultant working for SAP (Data Analytics & Reporting) - (Entrepreneur) Web Design Agency (failed) - SAP Consulting (3rd Party Partner) - (Entrepreneur) Startup (failed) - Management Consulting (we were doing about ~15 IT Due Diligence projects a year when I joined) - Left previous firm and started my own firm (Renna Partners), which exclusively focused on IT/Tech DDs (previous firm did IT strategy + DD was a small part of the overall biz) - Sold my firm to my competitor (Crosslake), which is who I work for now Experience that led to this type of work: I started as a consultant in SAP's support group. Oddly, at a young age this gave me exposure to the technical/operational challenges of M&A as I sat in on a high profile customer who bought SAP and BOBJ integrated products before the company merged, and then had to deal with the companies/tech talk to each other post close. This was more "in the trenches" than it was strategic, but it help formulate how I thought about the strategy of M&A for companies. I then taught myself to code when I tried doing a web design agency and a startup. Failed miserably, but gave me a ton of empathy about what its like to be a (1) a founder (2) an engineer and (3) a business operator. After my last startup failed, I called an old friend of mine and luckily they were hiring. Their IT DD practice was small (it was 1-2 people) but growing. I came on and basically acted as a junior partner with one of the partners who led the practice. We quickly grew that to supporting ~100 deals/year. The company wasn't strategic about the work (they wanted large scale IT strategy gigs), so we split off and I start my own firm that focused solely in on IT/Tech DD. I then sold that company to my biggest competitor. I'm now an MD/Executive at that firm. My experience with hands on development, owning/operating a business, M&A, mix of enterprise software + implementation, and consulting (this can't be understated, there is a ton of value in knowing "how to be a consultant") is probably what really helped me excel in this space. Oh and now that I've sold a company myself, I have even more perspective :) Typical person: There are usually two types of personas that fit well: career consultants in tech M&A (think E&Y, West Monroe, KPMG, etc.) and operational leaders (e.g. seasoned CTOs, VP of Engineering, Head of Product, etc.). People who have done both are IDEAL. Personally I look for "athletes" or T-Shaped people. You need to be able to get very technical and then translate this to a financial person who doesn't know the difference between Java and JavaScript, which is a very unique skill in itself. P.S. I have a huge demand Product people (market + technical) who want to help do Product Due Diligence + Product Strategy consulting. Please reach out if you're interested.

mbesto 4y ago
Here is a link if you want to apply: https://jobs.lever.co/crosslaketech/7b2e42ec-d873-443f-b30f-20d37dbdf51c https://jobs.lever.co/crosslaketech/7b2e42ec-d873-443f-b30f-...