Thread by @ltvjedi

Truly honoured to be surrounded and work with some of the best tech CFOs out there @inovia. Couple of thoughts on what "great" looks like.

1/

Great CFOs measure and think about capital efficiency all the time:
- Can we expect high growth to continue by applying capital?
- How much value do we generate with each dollar we consume?
- How long does it take to pay back our CAC using gross margin dollars?

2/

Great CFOs measure and think about product-market fit all the time:
- What does our organic acquisition funnel looks like?
- How deeply do our users engage with our product?
- Do customers spend more over time on our product?

3/

Great CFOs find ways to communicate what the return on investment is in the context of the value drivers. They are houses of "no", they don't casually spend money.

4/

They lead board conversations, they don't get stuck in minutia and can manage investors, vs. asking investors what to do.

5/

They can build a fundraising strategy that is as solid as your product strategy. They will know when to step on gas (offensive) or make cuts (defensive). When cuts are needed, they can help push a CEO over the mental hurdle and execute.

6/

They are business leaders, they help attract star talent and pushback on the CEO when something doesn't make sense.

7/

They establish a reporting that is as clear as angels singing. They don't only track variances to plan but also comment on what is going to happen next quarter given variances to plan (foresight).

8/

They naturally pushback on VP sales forecast and VP marketing requesting more budget. They develop simple mental models to allocate capital and stick to it and can double down or course-correct.

9/

They won't try to support a business model or process that is broken, they will let it blow up and look for something that scales.

10/

M&A is a great skill to have but not a requirement. Often if a rollup plan or sales process takes shape, it’s good to have a great banker anyways or someone in corp dev, given that it’s just another Tuesday for them vs. nerve racking if not M&A pro to start with.

11/

There is a catch when hiring forward: CFOs with mostly public experience often haven't necessarily lived the instrumenting phase that happens pre-IPO and so can be an overshoot when a roll-up the sleeve mindset needed. Great CFOs can scale with the company.

12/