WSO Podcast | E168: Private Equity Portfolio Ops from Accenture and Deloitte
About
In this episode, Dan shares his path from the strategy group at Accenture, to M&A strategy at Deloitte and how he positioned himself to work with private equity clients. We learn what he does day to day and how his responsibilities have shifted now that he is working within a private equity fund to help their portfolio companies drive growth.
WSO Mentor
Want to work with Dan? Check out his profile here!
Or Listen to the Podcast Here:
Apple Podcasts
Spotify
Stitcher
Resources:
WSO Podcast (Episode 168) Transcript:
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:00:06] Hello and welcome. I'm Patrick Curtis, your host and chief monkey, and this is the Wall Street Oasis podcast. Join me! As I talked to some of the community's most successful and inspirational members to gain valuable insight into
different career paths and life in general. Let's get to it. In this episode, Dan shares his path from the strategy group at Accenture to M&A strategy at Deloitte and how he positioned himself to work with private equity clients. We learn what he does day to day and how his responsibilities have shifted now that he is working within a private equity fund to help their portfolio companies drive growth and joy. Dan, welcome to the Wall Street Voices podcast.
Dan: [00:00:53] Awesome. Hey, Patrick. Very nice to meet you. How are you doing?
Patrick (CEO of WSO) [00:00:56] Great. So I'd love it if you could just give the listeners a short summary of your bio.
Dan: [00:01:01] Yeah, absolutely. So, Danielle, I'm currently an associate at a middle market, lower middle market private equity firm on the portfolio support team. My role is really driving all things post-deal for our portfolio companies. So it's a portfolio company onboarding, getting our reporting package set up, aligning on key KPIs and metrics on how we're going to measure the business as we grow it. In addition to that support a variety of growth strategy and operational improvement engagements across our buyout fund, our mid-market fund, excuse me, our buyout fund, our growth equity fund, as well as our small cap fund. And prior to that spent two years at a big four consulting firm. And then prior to that was at another top five top seven strategy consulting firm. Both times supporting financial sponsors, as well as strategic investors on a variety of engagements everything from commercial investment, due diligence to growth strategy, international expansion to operational improvement, cost takeout as well as PMO engagements.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:02:00] Michael, I'm excited about this one because we've had a lot of guests that are, you know, in private equity on the actual investment side, but not so many guests on the actual strategy kind of portfolio support side or operation side. So let's go all the way back just for your story. Let's start an undergrad. Did you always know finance kind of was or strategy or consulting was kind of on the radar? Or when did that kind of. Come on, the radar was at freshman year, sophomore year where you like pre-med, like me and then switched or what was the what was the progression of that?
Dan: [00:02:32] Yeah, absolutely. So, you know, knew I wanted to get into consulting, didn't really know a lot about investment banking or private equity. And about my junior year was interning. I was looking for a kind of a fall internship, summer or, excuse me, senior year is going be kind of light. So I wanted to kind of identify something to kind of
use my time and actually have the privilege to enter areas management on the transformation team. And you know, to be honest with you, that was kind of my first experience in private equity. Honestly, didn't know what it was before looking up areas, but got there and just fell in love with the business model of getting to grow, scale and optimize businesses. And frankly, I knew that was what I wanted to do long term. That was junior year. That was fall senior year
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:03:15] For also pretty late. So what were you doing in the summer, like your sophomore year and your junior year?
Dan: [00:03:20] Yeah. So sophomore or junior year, I had consulting internships at large consulting firms, and that was kind of the path that I was going to take post-grad graduation. So you kind of knew
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:03:30] It sounds like you knew pretty early on, like, you're like, OK, consulting is what I'm doing, but then you kind of got a little exposure to private equity. Very cool. And so like that summer, let's talk about that summer internship with. Was it ever expected to, like, be a sorry, Sorry, a fall internship? Yeah. Was it ever expected to be like, become a full time offer? Or you just thought, Hey, this is interesting? And did you did you have internships throughout the year like throughout your college career? No, so I, you know, typically does not have a have a kind of semester internship normally just, you
Dan: [00:03:59] Know, senior year had a little lighter course load. So I wanted to kind of identify, you know, get a little head start on work experience, frankly, which is why I kind of took the path to get that internship.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:04:10] You're a go getter. Yeah. So did you have a full time offer after your junior summer?
Dan: [00:04:15] Yes, I had a full time offer an extension right after graduation.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:04:18] Nice. Nice. Ok, so you're going in there. You're at a great firm. You're thinking to yourself, this consulting or strategy is going to be interesting and you get to work with sponsors right away. Tell me what that work was like was a learning curve steeper because you had done an internship also in the previous two years. Was it? Did it feel like you fit right in or I just love to just hear about that?
Dan: [00:04:40] Yeah, absolutely. You know, I was that guy when I joined Accenture Day one had already looked up. Everyone who worked on private equity engagements got my laptop, I think day two of orientation and was busy looking them up on kind of the talent on demand portal kind of internal portal, and it's busy reaching out to every one of them saying, Hi, I'm Daniel brand new to the firm. I'm really looking to get staff working for private equity, really enjoy the work. And, you know, that's what I wanted to do long term. And the next week, I was on a plane to Minneapolis to work on a cost takeout project for a large European sponsor who had bought a variety of consumer goods businesses in the U.S.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:05:19] So it works that initial outreach right away that do you feel like that was because you kind of kind of lean on that Barry's internship? Or do you feel like it was just simply because you put your hand up early
Dan: [00:05:30] That that got you that? Yeah. So I think it's both. I think, you know, definitely was the internship learning, you know, basic excel. Nothing kind of super complex that I do now. But, you know, learning to index match versus be look up. I thought it was a really a good way to kind of separate myself from the kind of the rest of the group. You know, most people understand how to be look up fewer people with entry level and know how to index match Colby. It's kind of talk the talk with the senior manager, I think definitely gave me a leg up from the Accenture, from the East Side and then sort of peer kind of personal soft skill side. I think just putting your hand up, being aggressive and telling people, you know, this is what you want to do, this is your experience. Also, give gave them a leg up kind of just showing that initiative.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:06:14] Did you feel like it might be taking the wrong way, like, oh, he's trying to eventually get some private equity? Did you fear that at all? Or you just said, Hey, this is you knew there was enough engagements at the firm in sponsors that it would even if you put your hand up, it would be OK kind of
Dan: [00:06:28] Thing. So I'd say, you know, I kind of left the sponsor side a little to the back burner. I did definitely emphasize my sponsor experience, but also kind of emphasize my excel skills, the cost, takeout engagement experience. And we could advocate kind of why I was interested in those roles and kind of where the value that I can provide.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:06:46] It's funny you mentioned index match versus V lookup, that's a little plug here. That's in our Excel modeling course. For the listeners here who want to get sharp on Excel, we have plenty detailed on an actual we actually benchmarked different exercises to make sure you're fast enough, like Daniel here.
Dan: [00:07:02] Honestly, I actually think index matches are easier to learn than be look up.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:07:07] Yeah, it depends. Index in match itself are not powerful, but together they're pretty powerful, right? Yeah. So let's talk about just that. You were there for a couple of years. How was the progression? You know, it sounds like you were immediately put on your immediately. What did they call it? You were on the beach and then you were like, very, very fat. You didn't have much time on the beach and then see you basically. You're in Minneapolis for how long was that initial engagement? What was it like? Were you immediately kind of being was like where your skills being leveraged right away or was it more like you're on the sidelines initially?
Dan: [00:07:42] Oh, no, absolutely. So, you know, thrown end kind of right away, you know, flew in Sunday night, Monday morning, we all the clients site and just down just frankly kind of thrown into the gauntlet right away. So I think having that past strong internship experience was really helpful to understand how to format. It sells out a format PowerPoint, how to work consistently and diligently kind of really helped. But you know, I mean, it's consulting, you know, you kind of I'm sure it's very much invested making you're kind of thrown in on day
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:08:11] One. Yeah. And so you were working with like 12, 14 hour days. You think on or you're with the client for like the eight hour day and then having to go work for four or five more hours kind of thing. Or what was it like?
Dan: [00:08:21] Yeah, definitely. I mean, the hours are consulting hours. Some are better than others. You know, some days are eight hours, some days or 10 hours or 12 hours. It just kind of depends on kind of what to do and kind of the project timeline.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:08:32] And then you'd fly back on Thursdays.
Dan: [00:08:34] Yeah, exactly. Thursday, Friday kind of. Sponsors require a little more a little longer hours. So you're typically doing Sunday to Friday versus Monday or Thursday
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:08:43] Was the goal. Did you have this vision of your career path, like eventually going to work at a portfolio fund for a while and then the operations group was at the thought? Or was it? Did you want to eventually be an investor?
Dan: [00:08:53] I'd say initially I wanted to be an investor, but just more over time to realize that I wanted to kind of focus more on operations, really, just because one, it's for me. I was really passionate about getting the grow scale and optimize the business and a little less into capital structure and kind of showing the legal diligence versus market diligence. You know, getting the kind of really get into the weeds of the business was kind of what I was passionate about,
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:09:18] Like unit economics, building out all that stuff and like the complex revenue builds. Is that what you mean?
Dan: [00:09:24] Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Kind of getting into a little more nitty gritty of the details and grow and scale the business versus kind of looking at the financials was kind of a little
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:09:32] More. There's a course we could do together. At some point I got to tell I should talk to you offline, but I'm sure your modeling skills are amazing. But something around portfolio type where maybe, maybe it's not. Maybe each. Each client or each project is so different that it's impossible to kind of standardize anything, but it's probably something there. That's for another discussion.
Dan: [00:09:53] Every sponsor looks the same. Five things, right? So yeah, definitely kind of get that out of high level, I think.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:09:58] Yeah. So you're so you're there for a couple of years and you're put on a bunch of projects. What was the kind of impetus for starting to look for another role at another firm? When did you feel like, OK, this is a good time to move? Or was it something that, just like a recruiter, approached you? I'd love to hear about that transition and then how you actually interviewed for it?
Dan: [00:10:15] Yeah, absolutely. So one of the partners I worked at, Accenture had actually moved on to Deloitte. Part of the Canadian practice. And he, you know, he had kind of really done sponsor deal work. So you kind of stayed in touch over time, worked occasionally together. And when he left, I kind of reached out to him and mentioned that I'd be kind of looking at some other opportunities. And he had mentioned that the U.S. firm is really looking to grow their private equity business. I thought it could be a great opportunity to kind of continue to leverage those skills, as well as just focus on private equity a little bit more. Accenture just being so large, in my opinion, it seemed like they really wanted to focus more on large global M&a integration transactions, such as a Qualcomm nsp or any of those mega mergers where you're going to have billable integration, work for a year plus and less on that kind of pre deal. Real strategy work that's four to six weeks in and out.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:11:12] So pre deal strategy work that, for example, pre deal like, let's say something, let's say a private equity firm has a I'm trying to understand where you guys come in and where you leave. So let's say a private equity fund has a deal under LOI. Is that where you'd come in like or like they're just in their diligence stream process? You'd be brought in to kind of what analyse what, it's not quality of earnings or is at it?
Dan: [00:11:33] No. So I'd say it's typically pre Eloi. We're kind of helping them submit their bid. So on one side, if it's commercial due diligence, that's market due diligence. So everything from market sizing, customer supplier segmentation, really looking at the competitive landscape, how is this business different, different from their competitors and then some value creation leverage? What are some opportunities to grow this business post investment on the commercial market side? And then on the operational side, that's kind of in line with the cue of being done. Then we'll kind of help them understand specifically for a carve out is oftentimes one year kind of leverage for operational due diligence, figuring out what is the run rate, cost and one time costs associated with setting up this business. You know, frankly, oftentimes the seller will maybe understate of the may look a little more profitable. So our job is really to come in and look at this is your carve out financials based upon our benchmarking and external analysis. So we're going to actually run this business both from a headcount perspective as well as an operations perspective. And then kind of what is that going to cost? Overall, it's really kind of get them to see what you're saying.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:12:38] The seller will understate, understate their EBITDA. Excuse me, they'll overstate. Overstated. Yeah, OK.
Dan: [00:12:44] Yeah, like, OK, I'm sorry. They will understate costs,
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:12:47] Understate costs, and then you go in and you're like, Actually, you got to do this x y z.
Dan: [00:12:51] They're going to need to FTEs. You're going to actually have to unload a new ERP and that's gonna cost you selection and consulting fees and integration fees. Yeah.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:12:59] And so that you're often hired by a potential private equity sponsor to hurt to help them with that negotiation? Sort of, right?
Dan: [00:13:06] Yeah. Of analysis and then potentially negotiations.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:13:09] Although I got to say with more the multiples are they're probably looking at your advice and saying sorry, but we had to bid, you know? Yeah, twenty five times EBITDA anyways or whatever. That's a little exaggeration, but you know, fifteen times to twenty, I
Dan: [00:13:24] Think the average multiples, what, 13 x last time
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:13:27] It's very high. Ok, so you're there for you're at a center. You're doing some interesting work, it sounds like. But you're it's again, the focus isn't necessarily on private equity, the private equity practice. You're thinking, I'd love to be somewhere where they're really focused and driven on that practice. So you end up kind of started looking, what were you? What else were you interviewing for or how you just started the process when you talk to your former boss?
Dan: [00:13:49] Yeah. So I interviewed a few private equity firms on the operations side. You know, as I'm sure you're aware, on the operations side, junior roles, they're really far and few between
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:14:00] That that was going to be my
Dan: [00:14:01] Husband has a massive team, KKR captain, a massive team. But outside of those kind of two firms, there's not very many junior operator roles. So it's reaching out networking with as many people as I could, reaching out to headhunters, et cetera. So we just kind of casting a wide net. So Accenture alum Cold reached out to people on LinkedIn, had headhunters, etc. So I really just kind of casting a wide net.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:14:27] Were you always like one of these like serial networkers? Were you? Have you always been good at it? Or do you feel like it took a while to get better at it? Like where to get those internships? Like, we didn't even go into this, but in undergrad, even how did you land those? So I think in undergrad, I
Dan: [00:14:43] Didn't really understand the networking thing as much until my really best friend now introduced me to investment banking my sophomore year and he was like, Yeah, you just kind of reach out to people on linkedin in investment banking and give them some kind of bullets on the experience and ask them to set up time and time to chat. And it's super weird at first, but once you do it, you realize that everyone's doing it, so you need to do it. And the people are just really willing to help and always happy to hop on the phone and chat with you. So, you know, once I kind of understood that it was acceptable and it was normal and, you know, people are willing to help you. I just kind of realized, you know, why not? I'm the kind of person. If I do apply to new job, I'm going to find out who is reporting to an email that person directly and just kind of voice, voice my experience and tell them I'm really excited about the role.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:15:35] Yeah, it's great. I think there's a lot of a mental block for kids that are in college around the networking thing, thinking that nobody's why would they want to help? And I can't. I can't offer them anything. And It's because the professionals actually feel good about helping. It's one of the bright spots of their day. Sometimes when they're, you know, they feel like they can see something, see themselves in you. Yeah. So it's so don't feel bad about reaching out. Sometimes it's a nice break for these professionals to chat with a kid for 10 to 20 minutes.
Dan: [00:16:01] So yeah, absolutely. And I think just building upon that, you know, don't get discouraged if someone is rude or doesn't respond. People just have bad days. People are busy, et cetera. The response rate?
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:16:13] Yeah. If you get a five to 10 percent response rate, you're doing it right. Yeah. On the cold emails. So, OK, so you're kind of you had started interviewing a little bit at some first few and far between kind of roles. Were you working with recruiters? I mean, yeah, this operations type, you said junior roles are super rare and then probably doesn't even exist for middle market funds primarily. So tell me a little bit of how you kind of went about it and how you even knew about this type of role. Are we talking about now? We're talking about
Dan: [00:16:43] Portfolio to go to my current role?
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:16:46] No, you had said initially that you were like interviewing for private equity operations. How did you even know an interview for that? Yeah, so I'd say if you had head hunters, a few cold, cold reach outs where were a fruitful kind of a mix of both those things?
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:17:00] And so did you get an offer and not take it or do you find
Dan: [00:17:04] It to knock it off? I spoke to a few firms,
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:17:08] And they typically hire strategy consultants.
Dan: [00:17:11] Yeah, I say most or most of their hires, rather strategy consultants or oftentimes individuals who just had some really unique industry experience potentially worked with a vendor that then the PE firm decided that they really like to use it as a vendor like digital marketing, for example, or sellstrom transformation. So kind of those are two avenues that I mainly saw. I go, OK, so, yeah,
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:17:34] Tell me how you ended up at Deloitte.
Dan: [00:17:37] Yeah, absolutely. So your interview with Deloitte kind of through that referral from my partner really enjoyed the practice. Excuse me, really enjoyed speaking with with the partners at the firm. And just got really excited from speaking with partners and learning that they're really trying to grow their private equity business. So I'm doing something that I want to be a part of. So after two years, Accenture joined Deloitte and spent two years there. We're kind of very similar at work, so as part of what they call M&A strategy and due diligence and in that role supported commercial due diligence, operational due diligence, growth strategy engagements and then as well as did some M&A integration and divestiture work as well.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:18:15] It's very cool. And so like you actually made a move, it's all from SFO to New York.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:18:18] Is that right?
Dan: [00:18:19] So I was splitting time between us up in New York, you know, sponsors to place it in New York. So which is where you where are you from originally California?
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:18:28] Ok, so home is home is California. Ok? Yeah, very cool. So you're there for a few years. Things are progressing. You're on interesting deals. Sounds like you guys had enough business. You weren't on the beach too much. Yeah, you're like never, ever. You're working very hard. So tell me a little bit about the transition to an actual private equity or portfolio support type role.
Dan: [00:18:51] Yeah, absolutely. So one of the recruiters I've been working with in the kind of spring summer of twenty had kind of reached out mentioned he had a role at a lower middle market, middle market firm who's growing their portfolio support team? Currently, it was two vice presidents. They're looking to bring on an associate so infused with the firm and just was just a really good fit. Really connected well with a partner is going to do well with my boss, the vice president, and just thought to be a really good role to really get the really drive skills I learned at Accenture and Deloitte into my current role.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:19:29] So it's similar type of work. It's just now you're doing it for a portfolio as a private equity fund rather than a consulting firm.
Dan: [00:19:37] So yeah, it's a little different in the sense of we are three people across thirty five portfolio companies. So oftentimes we're more project managing and helping drive the value versus actually doing the work in the sense of, you know, we'll hire a third party or consulting firm to do some of the work, whether it's an ERP cut over or
Dan: [00:19:56] A digital transformation really to branding, for example, you know, a hired external party. And then our role is really partnering with the management team, the deal team and the third party to kind of make sure it's successful.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:20:07] You give me an example of like, so you gave me a few there, but I think it's interesting to people to hear like a little bit of the day to day in terms of like so like a branding, for example, projects. So you're almost like a you're managing a lot more product rather than like you're not necessarily in excel doing all the revenue, but like you're managing the consultants, you are reviewing work. Is that correct? Is that a way I
Dan: [00:20:28] Could think of it? Yeah, definitely. You know, I think we're definitely doing a decent excel, you know, internally, but oftentimes engagements, we're definitely leveraging third parties to kind of use their intellectual horsepower and just their manpower to really drive value.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:20:41] Is the fund ever bringing you on to look at new potential trends, our new portfolio companies that they're looking at adding? Or is it mostly all just, hey, you guys just focus purely on the on the port coast, help them.
Dan: [00:20:55] So I'd say, you know, definitely differ fund to fund my fund. We're a little less focused on kind of pre deal kind of pre investment work, but for example, we are looking at a business where my boss had previously been employed in a similar industry. So he was jumping in and supporting same review and helping them think through the diligence questionnaire, things like that. But just from a time value perspective, it's kind of a deal. Teams really focused on driving, driving new deals, and we're really focused on onboarding and migration and kind of pushing investment. I mean, it sounds like, you know, for
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:21:27] Your role the stuff you learned in consulting, It's translated really well over to what you're doing now. Besides the modeling, what are the other like key skills that people could kind of look to build to make themselves successful, like is it something where you just need the reps to like, understand strategy better or are there things they can study?
Dan: [00:21:48] Any suggestions? Let's say I'm just project management super important being really organized. You know, holding these third parties accountable where you can really drive value is just taking any weight off the deal team's hands. You know, things that they just don't have to get their feet in and they can just kind of get the updates on. So it's really kind of project management being organized. I'd say I think what's underappreciated is just the level of finance knowledge. I don't really model cash flows very often, but understanding how cash flow works, understand the impacts of capex and working capital and things like that I think are really important just because the deal team what they live in and breathe and they sometimes don't. They sometimes forget that other individuals in the organization aren't always living and breathing that kind of stuff. So I think it's just really important, if possible, to kind of get some reps and understand that stuff in a more detailed level so that when they ask you to jump in or mention something looks off and capex, you kind of know what they're talking about. I think that's two, I think three, just any unique kind of functional expertise you can bring, whether it's sales transformation or cost takeout or pricing.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:23:00] So what do you mean by sales transformation like you? Give me an example because I have I'm not a consultant and a lot of my listeners probably aren't.
Dan: [00:23:06] There's a number of socialism means so many different things.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:23:09] Yeah. Can you give me an example?
Dan: [00:23:11] Yeah. So for example, you know, sales cost effectiveness. What does that mean? How could you measure your sales force? For example, I was working with one of our portfolio companies the other day to help better track and manage their sales force. So we put around Kpis and metrics around what is your sales funnel look like? So what are leads? What are kind of the next level in your sales funnel? What are closed engagements? And then from that perspective, so what are the different buckets within your sales funnel? Where are they today? How does that compare to last year? And then looking at? Right from also a sales individual perspective now looking at your entire sales force, looking at what is their average revenue per a close up or a closed transaction and really looking at how does that compare to last year? How does it compare to year to date from putting some analytics around the sales funnel? So it's better to be able to better be able to track and manage it so we can potentially forecast revenue based upon the sales funnel?
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:24:11] Very cool. And do so, you would be helping kind of manage the consultants. I would help put in those analytics or you would help actually build the analyst and you're like, do you have enough skills to actually do that? And are they using something like a Salesforce CRM or what typically? Or it could be anything? Yes.
Dan: [00:24:26] So in this particular example, when we're just typically building analytics around measuring the salesforce, you know, that's something we'll kind of do internally. Yeah, our management team uses Salesforce. So then I'm kind of exporting their Salesforce data and putting it into excel to be able just to kind of run some analytics and then using those analytics in that dashboard to use during our monthly Financial Review calls to review the kind of key KPIs and metrics around the business.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:24:55] And then you'd be able to kind of monthly just pull down that that excel, place it into an input sheet and then your excel will spit out some sort of dashboard that will give updates. Yeah, exactly. So every month
Dan: [00:25:06] Our company sends us the kind of the raw data and then that kind of built a dashboard. So I'll just kind
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:25:12] Of like power bi or is that we're using or what
Dan: [00:25:15] Do you do best in class? That's what we want to eventually get to is power bi. Currently, we're just using Excel. Ok.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:25:21] That's probably what I would do, too, because I don't know how to use power, even though we have a course on. I should I should we have a course on that. I should take it and maybe build it for so we need to be more analytics. We use Tableau a lot. So oh, wow. Ok, yeah. So OK, so you're doing all this stuff and anything else like on the strategy side, I guess just reading and just understanding industries and how to look at industries and break them down.
Dan: [00:25:48] Yeah, I mean, I think, you know, doing maybe like two to three commercial due diligence is just to understand, how do you segment a market? How do you get to real TAM or what is it truly addressable market? How do you think? What are some things that a PE firm looks for? So, for example, reoccurring revenue versus non recurring revenue? What is the you split it things like that to understand gross margin?
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:26:10] Very cool. So, yeah, I mean, thank you for sharing your story. Is there anything else you'd want to share before we call any final words of wisdom for the listeners in terms of how to follow in your footsteps? Because I think there's a lot of people looking to get to the investing role, but not many people even know about portfolio support, and I think it can be a great option for management consultants specifically who actually enjoy the work, but they're looking to get a little closer to the investment side.
Dan: [00:26:34] Yeah, absolutely. I think, you know, I think this role is growing more and more. More and more funds are growing by creation roles. And, you know, oftentimes they have operating partners or the director or SVP level, and they're slowly building their teams out down. But so a few things. One, I think, just reaching out to as many people as possible and just networking, you know, these roles aren't kind of more few and far between. So by having connections with individuals, you know, you're kind of top of mind to them. If a role were to come up, I think that's one I think to, you know, just getting a broad set of experience. Even if the role isn't supporting a private equity firm. You know, we do own companies, we don't own private equity firms. So just getting any kind of strategic experience that you can get on any number of engagements, even I.T.
integration or
Dan: [00:27:22] It covers, you know, we're constantly thinking about companies have an ERP or we bought for companies in four different RFPs. We're going to need to integrate, integrate one of them. I think, you know, just finding ways like that to really differentiate your skill set. This is super important
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:27:38] In ERP is just like enterprise software type thing. What is it? Stand for ERP
Dan: [00:27:42] And enterprise resource planning. Just enterprise software. But yeah, at the highest level. Know you have four companies using different softwares. You're going to need to onboard them to one software.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:27:53] Yeah, I want a nightmare. Ok. Yeah. Oh man. So great. Well, I appreciate. I appreciate all that. Thank you for sharing your wisdom. And yeah, best of luck to you and all the in your future path. Sounds like you're you're in the right direction. Perfect. Thanks, Patrick. And thanks to you, my listeners at Wall Street Oasis. If you have any suggestions whatsoever, please don't hesitate to send them my way. Patrick at Wall Street Oasis dot com and till next time.
or Want to Sign up with your social account?