To Insight Partners at Two Decades

Today is a red letter day for me.?Exactly twenty years ago, I started my full-time position at Insight as a newly minted Analyst.?At the time, no Analyst had been promoted in the history of Insight.?That was not a rigid policy; it was just a reality of the age of the Analyst program.?Insight was making a big push to establish its sourcing program, and I was a member of the first-ever Summer Analyst class that started in 2003.?As I came back for that full-time start in 2004, I was certain of two things:?i) I would learn a ton and ii) I would figure out exactly what I wanted to do for a career.?Well, I was right.?I have learned beyond my wildest dreams, and that two-year plan has become a two-decade beginning to an interconnected emergence of me as an investor/leader and Insight as a leading software ScaleUp partner.?I find myself overwhelmed with many emotions, but three are front and center:?Gratitude, Pride, and Excitement.

But first, I want to share a quick bit of backstory.?This job was never just a job for me.?This was deeply personal.?My grandmother started a clothing store in 1969.?By the time I was born, it was a chain of approximately a dozen shopping-mall-based stores called the Slack Shack.?My dad worked there.?My uncles worked there.?My mom worked there.?Sunday dinners weren’t just dinners.?It was an ELT meeting.?I was getting a front row seat to entrepreneurship through the eyes of the child that watches what blood, sweat, and tears it takes to make a business work.?I also got the college of hard knocks view of how absolutely crushing the journey can be.?There was a catastrophic warehouse fire in 1996, and the business closed in 1997.?It was a profoundly hard time for the family.?But, the lessons of deepest dedication and the value of hard work would never leave me.

Fast forward six years to my interview in 2003.?I met Jeffrey Lieberman on February 11.?I was sitting in front of one of the best top-down investors/thinkers that I would ever meet. I was inspired to say the least.?When Jeff asked me why I might want to do this, I told a part of that Slack Shack story.?I remember saying, “I so love the idea of providing capital and resources to help make the entrepreneurial journey a little safer.”?My family never had capital or help, and they were operating one of the hardest businesses ever:?specialty retail without your own brand.?Insight was operating in a much better business model:?Software.?And they provide help and capital??I was pretty hooked.?Two days later, I met Deven Parekh.?I was intoxicated by his unbridled energy and passion for the work at Insight.?I was fully hooked, and the visceral connection to our mission was established forever.?I did my summer internship in 2003, and enthusiastically signed up for the full-time job for 2004.

Turning back to the emotions, here we are 20 years later.?I want to comment briefly on the big three:?Gratitude, Pride, and Excitement.

Gratitude

I will never do this one justice.?My feelings of gratitude exceed my capacity for words.?To my wife (and later kids), thank you for accepting the heavy time tax doing this job requires.?None of the past two decades works without your love and support.?To my family, thank you for the lessons and the work ethic.?Those lessons are the foundations of how I show up every day.?To Deven, my first full-time boss, I remain astonished by what we have accomplished together.?Thank you for all of it.?You were like a demigod to me when I joined.?Now, I feel a brotherly connection beyond friendship and partnership.?To Jeff Horing, thank you for always being an advocate—and for giving us all the chance to build Insight with you.?Your vision that what we give away in portfolio theory comes back many fold with expertise, capability, and excellence has been imitated—but never duplicated.?To Aaron Skonnard, Mark Mader, and all the CEOs I ever worked with, thank you for believing in me and Insight.?Your names are etched on so many of the bricks in our foundation.?To Robert Trejo , thanks for the push (shove?) as a freshman to dare bigger and go for it.?To Danny Slomoff PhD, thank you for helping me find my voice.?To Devra Fradin, thanks for the coaching and many lessons in “guilt management.”?To the rest of the 20-year club not yet mentioned, a huge thank you to Mike Triplett, Mark Lessing, Blair Flicker, peter sobiloff, Nikitas Koutoupes, Hilary Gosher, Cian Cotter, Steve Rabin-, Liz Persaud, and Erica Harris.?I joined you all as a stranger, and now you are like family.?Next, we need to make those special robes like they have on SNL!?To all my other partners and colleagues over the years, thank you for your steadfast commitment to making Insight special.?And to all Insight Analysts past and present, thank you for extending our brotherhood/sisterhood as we have built a great sourcing engine for software.?Thank you for believing in us as you remain the lifeblood of the firm.?I have only scratched the surface on gratitude.?There are so many teachers, friends, professors, and other individuals that have influenced me in the random walk to right here.?Thank you.?

Pride

I used the word astonished above.?There are many synonyms.?But, it’s a really good single word to capture the magnitude of the feeling.?The Insight I joined was approximately 35 people across the whole firm.?We had raised $1.2bn in our history and had invested $750m so far after 10 years of operations.?Today we have individual deals with more than $750m invested.?We have single deals generate more than $1.2bn of gains.?But most importantly, we have empowered a generation of software entrepreneurs to strive to achieve their fullest vision more completely, more quickly, and more safely.?I love that we can’t win unless they win too, and wow have there been some incredible wins along the way.?We have also codified into a single sentence what was once a few paragraphs.?We want to be the best software ScaleUp partner we can be to you—wherever you may be in the ScaleUp journey.?Not sure what a ScaleUp is??I define it as the space between when you are done being a StartUp but you aren’t all the way a GrownUp.?We love software adolescence.?I am so so proud of the network of investors, operators, and Onsite colleagues that don’t just talk about adding value.?We have the tools and resources to deliver on the promise of adding value.?Our firms’ values are Scrappiness, Creativity, Hunger to Win, Heart, and Commitment to Constant Reinvention.?I am so deeply proud that our firm's values live so deeply in all of it.?These values are the source of our success, and I am especially proud that we lead with Heart front and center.

Excitement

The job is not done.?In many ways, we have only just begun.?We have spent nearly 30 years defining, refining, and crafting our ScaleUp commitment.?Our model for sourcing, deal execution, and Onsite is well-established with scalability.?Our future is dependent on adhering to our values and remembering one of our most fundamental truths:?We are blessed to get the chance to work with what we believe are the best companies in the software ecosystem.?We have a responsibility to deliver for them and with them.?The tech world has been through a tough few years.?This too shall pass.?I am excited that “normal” will feel like such an upgrade to these headwinds, and I am confident that this is a galvanizing moment to establish further our leadership as a ScaleUp software partner.

Thank you, Insight!?Here’s to the next decade!