Dave Leaver’s Post

How and when to make your startup's first finance hire 👇 As your startup scales, the complexity of its financial operations and needs scale alongside it. This shift marks a critical decision for a founder on when, and how, to bring a dedicated finance lead onto the team. Here’s what Joyce Mackenzie Liu, Founder and CEO of Pegafund had to say about this topic. ⌛️ How to know when to make your first finance hire: The time to make your first full-time finance hire is usually when you have early signs of product-market fit. Maybe this means you have 20 paying customers as a B2B SaaS. Or in terms of revenue, you’re probably looking at $1-2M in revenue. That being said, revenue and funding milestones are not the only indicators of clear PMF. 📈 How to hire the right person to build your finance team: Since the first hire will be offloading the CEO and implementing business and financial controls, you’re likely looking for an all-rounded Controller or Sr. Accountant who is also commercially minded. It could also be a Finance Manager, Sr. Finance Manager, or Head of Finance who has both accounting qualifications and is a good communicator. A balance between having technical and soft skills, and a growth mindset will be important as well. Bringing a full-time finance hire in-house marks an important milestone in your company’s growth. As a founder, it’s important to be able to recognize when it’s the right time to hire your first finance lead, and how. Dive deeper at the link in our comments.

Do you have the right finance team to start preparing for 2024's budgeting and planning season? Get the org charts to see what your team should look like for every stage of startup and scale-up: https://bit.ly/3Pxn8pw #finance #accounting #hiring #recruitment #careers

The differences between finance at a startup and what you think finance professionals do: When you tell people you work in finance they think: Consulting Auditing Banking Taxes When you do finance at a startup you don't: Consult. You execute. Audit. Once a year, max. Banking. Only at a transaction. Taxes. Most likely outsourced. Instead, you are: Establishing sales goals. Creating marketing budgets. Setting up the company hiring plan. Forecasting to keep people accountable. Reviewing results to drive decisions and investments. When you do finance at a startup... The role. The CFO. It's not the back-office functions you typically think about. It's a front office... Decision making... Direction changing... Role. That's the difference. And it's what makes being in a finance role at a startup so great. - - - Hey, I’m Jason. I’ve been doing finance for startups for 15+ years now. Have seen it all. This month I am trying something new with my content. I am creating a series on “How to run finance at a startup.” This week is all about building a finance team from scratch.

Finance for startups 101: The job. The team. The tech. This is the from-scratch 101 stuff. For non-finance founders. The job finance will do: Manage cash, set expectations, increase value. You manage cash through great controls. You set expectations through great FP&A. You increase value by investing cash properly and hitting your expectations. The functions of your finance team: Controller manages cash through AP / AR / accounting. FP&A sets expectations through financial modeling. CFO delivers value by communicating the two above. The tech you will need to be set up with: The controller will need a GL, banking, and payroll. FP&A will need a spreadsheet or FP&A tool. CFO role will need Cap table software to manage stakeholders. Craziest part of all of this. Is that at this stage, this is all handled by one person. I know, because I am doing it. This is the 101 stuff. What would all my finance people add? - - - Hey, I’m Jason. I’ve been doing finance for startups for 15+ years now. Have seen it all. This month I am trying something new with my content. I am creating a series on “How to run finance at a startup.” This week is all about building a finance team from scratch.

Some business owners still confuse bookkeepers with fractional CFOs. So let's explain the difference: A bookkeeper records financial transactions, maintains accurate financial records, and prepares financial reports. A CFO helps you understand your numbers and what to do about them. They help you think strategically, set long-term goals, and help set a plan to get you there. Then, they help hold you accountable to that plan, adjusting it along the way as needed. In short, they’re a strategic partner, helping you understand, allocate and optimize capital. Both are crucial roles in helping a startup grow. But... 𝗪𝗵𝗲𝗻 𝘁𝗼 𝗵𝗶𝗿𝗲 𝗲𝗮𝗰𝗵? Every company is different. But if I had to give a rule of thumb for hiring, it’d look like this: A good bookkeeper is needed from day 1. Pairing them with a good senior accountant and/or a controller will take you pretty far. A fractional CFO becomes helpful around the $1M mark (in some cases, a good controller can bridge take you further and bridge you to a CFO) and usually can take you to $20M-$30M. Once there, it's time to start bringing the finance function in-house.

Hire a great CFO/Head of finance sooner rather than later. A mistake I see a lot of founders make is to wait too long or hire too junior. Once you’re scaling quickly (especially if you’re a fintech), don’t even think about hiring someone mediocre in this role. A great CFO pays for themselves very quickly: • They’ll sort/optimize tax & treasury stuff • They close books faster than you could ever do • They build accounting systems and processes (imp for regulated entities) • Trust me, implementing an ERP is not as easy as you think (I’ve failed at it) They’ll then build out the rest of the finance function with their specialist network

Benefits you will get from hiring your first finance person (from what I have seen). - Quicker to raise money (both debt and equity) - Stretch the companies cash (extends runway significantly) - Setup systems and reporting (creates accountability and visiability) - Closes the books (stay compliant and tracks actual performance in dollars) - Better understanding of financial results (to help you make smarter decisions) But you only really understand the impact of your first finance hire... After you bring in someone to take care of finance.... From what I have seen [and done] is that the first finance hire can make a huge difference even at the earliest stages. And It’s why you often here from founders… “I wish we hired a CFO sooner”

Hiring an accountant may become necessary when: 👉 Your startup’s financial situation becomes more complex. 👉 You lack the necessary accounting knowledge and expertise within your team. 👉 You need to focus on core business activities and do not have time to manage your startup’s accounting. 👉 You are seeking external funding and must prepare accurate and professional financial statements. 👉 Your startup is growing rapidly, and managing its finances is becoming increasingly challenging. Learn more about whether you may need to hire an accountant: https://bit.ly/49gePWB #RJFAccountancy #AccoutingTips #AccountanyExperts

It contradicts what has been taught to us our entire lives. How can we pay less and expect more? With a fractional Controller or CFO from Margin CFO, you'd get experience and quality... Margin is a team of CPAs, former Big 4 accountants, and finance professionals with extensive experience helping high growth startups and small businesses grow and scale. Collectively, we’ve spent most of our careers working internally for high growth startups, building and leading world class accounting and finance functions to enable those startups to achieve exponential growth. During that time, we’ve helped companies go public, secure hundreds of millions in venture and private equity funding, acquire and integrate other businesses, and exponentially grow revenue and headcount. At Margin, we’re taking everything we’ve learned – all of the best practices for high caliber accounting and finance functions – and we’re infusing it into our outsourced financial services. Behind every successful business you’ll find a highly talented accounting and finance function. Most startups and small businesses are too small to afford that level of talent… That’s where Margin comes in. We’re here to provide you with that same level of talent – in the form of highly experienced bookkeepers, fractional controllers, and fractional CFOs – all at a fraction of the cost.

New Finance Director Vacancy: £150,000 + Benefits (Thames Valley) But here's the twist: brutal transparency. Job seekers crave transparency and honest feedback - they're also big enough and ugly enough to take it. We constantly hear that job descriptions are too vague and that feedback is increasingly hard to come by. So, here is an honest checklist for this Finance Director vacancy. If you don't tick these boxes, there's a high possibility you will be rejected. Sometimes clients have a strong wish list for roles. This isn't meant to offend or alienate anyone - hopefully, people will appreciate this list, even if they don't fully agree with it. (Which you won't, I get it) It's our role to challenge and advise businesses when hiring, but knowing the starting point can be a useful guideline. Checklist: 1️⃣ You must be a qualified accountant. 2️⃣ You must have experience working for an SME (sub £100m turnover). 3️⃣ You must have had a stable career; too many short-term or interim roles will rule you out. 4️⃣ You must have international experience. 5️⃣ You must have extensive experience as a Finance Director/CFO. 6️⃣ You need to be hands-on and detail-oriented. 7️⃣ Technical expertise is essential: Accounting, Audits, Tax, VAT, Reporting, Controls, etc. 8️⃣ You must live within a 45-minute commute of the office. Let me know your thoughts. Does this actually help? What is the alternative? You apply for a generic role, get rejected but don't understand why Here is the transparent advert we posted should you want to apply. It's a brilliant role. https://lnkd.in/gPJZnqa4