S1E7 | How to Build a Software Company Inside a Consulting Firm

What happens when your CTO admits he built most of your products because he was "just lazy" and didn't want to hack XML anymore?

Damon Mittleider, Black Diamond Advisory's Chief Technology Officer  takes a rare look behind the scenes of how a consulting firm became a software innovator in the OneStream ecosystem.

The Accidental Software Company

Damon reveals how BDA's product vision emerged from day one—not as an afterthought, but as a core strategy. Coming from the Oracle Hyperion world where every implementation was a custom rebuild, he recognized OneStream's object-oriented architecture could support something revolutionary: truly reusable, transportable solutions.

What you'll discover:

• Why OneStream's relational blending and metadata capabilities make it fundamentally different from Hyperion
• The "platform on a platform" architecture: how Task Editor became the foundation for Accordion, which became the foundation for Compensation Management
• The real story behind BDA's metadata manager and security tools (spoiler: built out of pure laziness to avoid XML hacking)
• What it means to be in Partner Place's first two cohorts and why OneStream chose BDA as a launch partner
• The team dynamics behind constant innovation (and the Teams channel that's apparently a hotbed of "snark and sarcasm")

Building Blocks, Not One-Offs

This isn't about individual tools—it's about architectural thinking. Every BDA solution is designed to be a component in larger industry solutions, creating an ecosystem of capabilities that build on each other rather than reinventing the wheel.

The Honest Take on Partner Place

Damon shares a refreshingly honest perspective on OneStream's marketplace: still maturing, incredibly valuable for marketing and recognition, but the real value comes from having the structured thinking of a software company within the consulting space.

Perfect for anyone curious about the intersection of consulting and software development, the technical possibilities within OneStream, or what it takes to innovate at the pace of platform evolution. Plus, you'll get Damon's retirement plan: opening a petting zoo to escape technology forever.