Product advisory for founder-led and PE-backed SaaS
Every growth plan makes a promise about the product.
Can the product keep it?
Most companies find out after the deal closes or the growth arrives. The work is finding out first, and making sure the answer is yes.
Two decades building and leading product, from Fortune 500 to unicorn
Galvanizenow part of Diligent
Acuity Insights
Central 1
Where plans quietly break
A growth plan is full of product assumptions. Cross-sell assumes the acquired products share one understanding of the customer. Expansion assumes the roadmap follows the levers in the plan. A faster release pace assumes someone clearly owns the decisions.
Most of those assumptions never get tested. Financial diligence checks the numbers and technical diligence checks the code. Nobody checks whether the product engine can carry what the plan puts on it.
That's where I come in.
For twenty years I've built, consolidated and rebuilt B2B product portfolios, from a single flagship product to suites of acquired ones, most of them in regulated industries.
Five moments
Where are you right now?
Before the deal
You're evaluating a software company. You want an operator's read on whether the product engine can carry the deal thesis.
The first 100 days
The deal has closed. You need a product plan tied to the value creation plan, and a clear view of what changes first.
Bringing it together
Your products came through acquisitions or grew up separately, and customers can feel the seams. I've brought products onto one platform across four industries.
Building the product org
You're growing fast, and the hard product calls still land on your desk. You need a product org that decides well, and fast, without you.
Before the exit or a sale
The next buyer or investor will run product diligence of their own. Your product story needs to hold up when they do.
The method
Five questions: can the product carry the plan?
Every engagement starts with the same five questions, each measured against your plan.
- The betDoes the roadmap trace to the plan's growth levers?
- The evidenceDo customers and the commercial engine prove it?
- The modelIs there one current map of how the product models the business, and is the stack ready for what's coming, AI included?
- The decisionsWho makes product calls and how fast, and is the team using AI to ship faster without losing judgment?
- The storyWould the board or the next buyer believe it?
The first thing I ask for is the map.
In my first two weeks anywhere, I ask to see the current domain model and architecture. Most of the time it's out of date or it only exists in a few people's heads. When nobody can draw how the product thinks about the business, every integration and cross-sell plan is built on guesswork. It's also the fastest AI-readiness check I know. AI can't reason about a business your product can't describe.
Track record
What the work has delivered
- $1BExit, driven by platform integration
- 4Industries, where I've integrated acquired products
- 28%TAM unlocked, driven by EHR rebuild
- 100+Product managers, product marketers and designers coached, from director to associate
Start with the map.
Tell me where you are on the timeline. If a plan is counting on your product, we'll find out quickly whether it can carry it.
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