Why is the activity of building a financial model so transformational for founders? Because learning how to build a financial model Is akin to learning how to read. And building one for your own startup Is like reading the instruction manual On how your business works. Your Daily CFO, Lauren
20 days ago • 1 min read
"When I first started my business, I made a little simple financial model. It really wasn't impressive, but I could use it at least to track what was going on. Then I hired a Fractional CFO. They completely rebuilt my model and now it's much more sophisticated. Which is great, only now I have no idea how to use it. Now I just rely on them to run it and tell me what's going on. I have to ask their "permission" if I want to add anything to it, But mostly, I sorta just stay away from it." This...
about 1 month ago • 2 min read
For any solo founders out there who haven’t hired a team yet, A vote in the “just do it” camp: I was reviewing our model with a longtime client last week. He asked if we could add some additional functionality to it. I said, “Sure, we can look into that this month.” Wrote a little note in comments, And we moved on with the rest of meeting. This week, we opened up the model to review the weekly numbers And the new functionality was just THERE. Built, clean, and ready to use, As if by magic....
about 1 month ago • 1 min read
A few years ago, I was on a coaching call with a young entrepreneur who wanted to start a Fractional CFO business focused on startups. She said she wanted to pick my brain about how I built mine. At the time, I wasn’t doing much peer-to-peer consulting, but she was early in her journey and I figured I’d have plenty to offer. So I said yes, and we booked the session. Most of the call went smoothly. I listened closely to her situation and offered plenty of ideas and advice. But then she asked a...
about 1 month ago • 1 min read
Founders get a lot of advice. From investors, from friends, from advisors, from family, from experts, from peers, from books, from everywhere. And yet, often founders feel like they're all alone with no quality feedback. How does this happen? It’s this: Most people are terrible at giving advice. But I've noticed a trend in successful founders I work with: They are excellent at following good advice. In fact, it may be one of the most valuable skills I see in founders. VCs often call this...
about 2 months ago • 2 min read
In an early episode of The Growth-Minded CFO, we interviewed one of my favorite CFOs, Rita Kale, about how she grew in her career. One moment that stuck with me was her reflection on the time she ran her own startup. It was a short chapter in her career, but it changed everything. Why? Because it gave real meaning to something she’d been saying for years. As a finance leader, she’d always claimed to “act like an owner.” But it wasn’t until she was an owner that she realized: She never really...
about 2 months ago • 1 min read
I was on The FP&A Today podcast with Glenn Hopper this week, and he asked me a great question: “When you come in as the first CFO at a startup, where do you start?” Here’s what I said: I start by figuring out what we’re optimizing for. Not every company needs the same thing. Some need investor readiness. Some need a handle on burn. Some just need to sell something this month. As CFOs, it’s easy to walk in with our own checklist: ✅ Clean books ✅ Great dashboards ✅ Fancy spend policies But...
2 months ago • 1 min read
I’ve watched a lot of founders make the leap from high-growth SaaS to lifestyle brands. At face value, the switch looks easy: "I just want to take a break for a while and deal with a simple, real business" But under the hood? It's a totally different game. Here’s one of the weird things that catches them off guard every time: Seasonality. In SaaS, you’re taught to fear the dip. Revenue is supposed to glide upward — steady, predictable, compounding. If MRR goes down, it’s a fire drill. Growth...
2 months ago • 1 min read
You’ve probably heard of the Profit First methodology. Pay yourself first. Tuck money into separate accounts. Force profit by limiting what’s left to spend. It can be a game changer But it can also be a death spiral. Here's why: Profit First can help you build discipline ...Or it can hide deeper problems that’ll bite you later. I’ve seen founders: Set up all the accounts, but never fix bad pricing or slim margins Lock away cash for “profit,” then scramble for loans because day-to-day cash...
2 months ago • 1 min read