Matt Little is an experienced founding-team member who has been through 5 exits (co-leading two, advising on a further two and technical lead on another) and he now helps companies to scale faster and better.
In March 2020, Mercia introduced me to the team at Genba to support the team’s plans to bring the technology function in-house.
At that time, the board at Genba had already identified the strategic goal of being ‘self sufficient’ in both Product Management and Technology; the nascent in-house product and technology teams at Genba were very experienced in day-to-day technology management but the board wanted experience of scaling a product management team, experience of bringing a function back ‘in-house’ and experience of preparing for and going through an exit. Genba needed to expand the product team and to get it working effectively with the operations team led by Nick Craig and the engineering team led by Nick Tsiatinis.
We talked initially about the need for an interim CTO but it was clear that the need was for something broader – someone who could operate at board level and could advise on both Product and Technology, and help Genba look towards an exit and the associated Due Diligence process. Pragmatic was a word that was used a lot in relation to this project.
In the first few months, we helped the existing team to formalise the process for bringing the technology and product teams fully in-house and we helped to define the future structure of the team. We also took Geba through an independent assessment of their platform; this assessment was a risk-based “Due Diligence light” exercise so that they could concentrate their resources on preparing for any future due diligence process. Experience of helping similar tech firms prepare for exit and then go through the process was vital.
Delivering the board’s strategic aim required an experienced, flexible approach and not a rigid, pre-defined process and, of course, the process had to fit with the excellent culture that Matt Murphy had fostered with the board and the wider team.
In October 2021, we started a transition of business from the old, externally developed platform to the new platform which is built by the Genba team. On November 1st, the remaining business will be transferred to the new platform and the process of retiring the old platform will begin.