Killing the Zombies
Rationalizing a 13-product portfolio to prep for a $4B acquisition.
It all started when...
We were a slow moving 'feature factory' trapped in a services model. Our turnaround time was skyrocketing, our agility was stifled and our team was spread too thin. We had 13 products, fragmented codebases, and 70% of our revenue came from one-off customization services. We were unscalable.
My Role
The Purge: I conducted a ruthless P&L analysis and killed 8 'zombie products' to focus resources on the top 5 high-ROI platforms.
The Spine: I architected a unified backend (The Spine) so our K-12 and Corporate products shared 80% of their DNA.
The Flip: I shifted the business model, flipping revenue from 70% Services to 70% Product ARR.
Results
$5M ARR achieved on the product side.
Successful Acquisition by Yas Holding ($4B portfolio).
Reduced Payback Period by 2 years through improved unit economics.