As a startup leader, it can be incredibly challenging to balance time spent being strategic vs. executing. In particular, when you’re entering a new market or pivoting or evolving your product. Spend too much time on execution, and you’ll get no where fast. Spend too much time on strategy, and you’ll get no where slowly. How do you know you’ve reached the perfect balance? Be strategic for long enough to know which questions you should be asking your market. Then execute until you’ve answered...
3 months ago • 1 min read
Recently, I was chatting with a fellow CFO about the things required to build financial projections for a company. This person shared a belief that's highly common among finance folks: To do any kind of financial forecasting, you first need to build a solid financial operations foundation. The thinking goes... If you don't have excellent data on what's historically happened within the company, Then how could you EVER hope to possible predict what will happy in the future? What could you...
3 months ago • 1 min read
As anyone with bad knees will tell you (🙋🏻♀️), Downhill is not always easier. The same applies to resumes. When hiring, we often look for impressive titles, big brands, and upward career progressions. We associate these with competence and with success. But here's the thing: That's not what those titles signify. Those titles only tell us what other folks have thought about a candidate in the past. Those titles show the opportunities this candidate has been given by others. Those titles tell...
3 months ago • 1 min read
If return-to-office mandates and DEI program shutdowns at Big Tech are making you angry, know this: They’re designed to. Shareholders are currently favoring profitable growth, which = cost-cutting. But layoffs are typically also quite expensive. Especially when the norms are 6+ months of full pay. What’s easier? -> Telling a remote employee living in NYC that their job has moved to Seattle. That it’s in-office required. …And that it starts next week. Or setting policies so egregious that 50%...
3 months ago • 1 min read
If there's one thing I've learned from working with over 150 startups and small businesses as a FracCFO and Finance instructor, it's this: Every company is unique But they also ALL have one thing in common: For every company (service businesses, product businesses, small businesses, large, local, international, high tech, mom & pop, and every business in between): Their Profit is equal to their Revenues, minus their Costs. In other words, Profit = Revenues - Costs. Here's why that's so...
8 months ago • 1 min read
The Friday Finance Break Figuring out what’s most important in your business sounds like it should be easy But it’s not. That’s because everything is important, Everything is a rush, And everything is on the line. You know what’s easier to determine? What’s a F*ck No. What will you NOT do? What do you REFUSE to become? What DOESN'T align with your values? What requests will be an immediate and outright NO? What’s NOT serving you and your business anymore? What’s STEALING your attention and...
over 1 year ago • 1 min read