Last week Fishbowl Marketing was acquired by Symphony Technology Group. I’m always a little leery of private equity ownership because many of these funds use financial engineering to steal their IRR instead of digging into the operations and making improvements at a more fundamental level. Classic example is Golden Gate Capital stripping the real estate off Red Lobster.
But Fishbowl made a good move years ago in buying Mike Lukianoff’s analytics company. Mike was one of the first people I heard of doing legitimate data science in the brick and mortar space. Many retail executives will tell you they’re using “big data” or “data science” but that’s just verbal masturbation to make it look like they know what they’re doing. So because of Fishbowl’s willingness to involve themselves in real data science by aligning with Mr. Lukianoff, they’re probably making a good move by partnering with Symphony.
come over to the HotSchedules office and you’ll see what’s busy. A dedicated crew serving intelligent, passionate restaurateurs. Jordan Thaeler, you should have greater respect for these merchants you call unsophisticated.
David Cantu
Co-Founder of HotSchedules
I have greater empathy for the employees, customers and shareholders who are continuous cannon fodder at the political whims of senior leadership. But I’m glad that we are now talking.