Due Diligence Advisory & Leadership Insights Approach Try the Platform Let's Talk
Approach

When product execution determines the outcome, experience is the only edge.

25 years of product leadership across founder-led startups, growth-stage companies, and PE-backed B2B SaaS. Built as a firm by an operator, not a consultant.

Marc Liebman

Marc Liebman, Founder

Operator Origins

Why I built this.

I've spent 25 years operating inside the kind of companies I built this practice to serve. Vector Solutions, backed by Genstar Capital and Insight Partners. Amadeus Hospitality, where I served as Global SVP of Product. TravelClick, where I led the product diligence across two PE-led exits, including its sale to Thoma Bravo. Edgewater Technology inside Blackstone's hospitality portfolio. In Q1 2026 alone I assessed five M&A deals across multiple PE groups, with one transaction closed and a second in final stages. The Product Operator exists because product diligence done from the outside misses what product execution actually looks like from the inside, and the gap between the two is where value creation breaks down.

The Work

Two ends of the same transaction.

Pre-close, I tell deal teams what they're actually buying. Product viability, team capability, technology risk, commercial exposure. Most product diligence is structured around what the seller wants you to see. Mine is structured around what the value-creation thesis requires you to be right about.

Post-close, I build the operating model the thesis requires. That work has looked different at every engagement. Sometimes it's rebuilding a product leadership team. Sometimes it's rationalizing a fragmented portfolio from roll-up M&A into a cohesive platform. Sometimes it's instituting the discipline that turns product from a cost center into an engine of EBITDA expansion.

In both, the goal is the same. Move the asset toward the outcome the sponsor underwrote, in the time available, with measurable results.

How This Works

A small number of engagements, by design.

I take a small number of engagements at any one time. Every client gets me directly: not a team of associates, not a playbook handed to someone else. The work compounds when the operator runs it.

Public Writing

What I think, in public.

I publish ongoing commentary on PE-backed SaaS, M&A diligence, and product operating models. The view from inside the work, not from the outside looking in.

Read the latest →

Go Deeper

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Platform access and methodology →

Let's Talk

If the situation is real,
the conversation should be direct.

I respond to every substantive note within 48 hours.

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