GymShark is beating Nike, Adidas, and LuLu Lemon at their own game...
And they're doing it by way of Accounting.
It's called the cash conversion cycle. Here's how it works:
The median CFO salary in the United States is $393,377.
There are multiple paths you can take to this powerful position.
If you're in finance, here's what you should know about becoming a CFO:
The median CFO salary in the United States is $393,377.
There are multiple paths you can take to this powerful position.
If you're in finance, here's what you should know about becoming a CFO:
The median COO salary in the United States is $464,033.
There are multiple paths you can take to this powerful position.
If you are in business, here's what you should know about becoming a COO:
According to the Boston Consulting Group, there was more than $1.7 Trillion in M&A deal activity in just the first half of 2022.
Here are the 9 most common M&A Strategies, all on one page, with real life examples.
Wait, Expensify has 138 employees and does $170,000,000 in revenue per year???
That is NUTS!!!!
That's more than $1 million per employee...
Can anyone think of a more efficient company on a per head basis?
GymShark is beating Nike, Adidas, and LuLu Lemon at their own game...
And they're doing it by way of Accounting.
It's called the cash conversion cycle. Here's how it works:
Most people assume I became a startup CFO by staying up late to study balance sheets and build DCFs.
False.
I just copied what these CFOs said on FinTwit:
I think this is the best chart CB Insights has put out in a while
Crazy to think some of these companies have been growing revenue 50%, even 75% or more y/y since ipo…
But their valuations are going in the other direction
Very indicative of the loco times we were in
H/T…
I've spent half of my career trying to nail one formula:
LTV to CAC
(that's lifetime value to customer acquisition cost)
The following threads will allow you to harness the powers of LTV to CAC:
The median cash compensation for an account executive selling software is $235,000 to $250,000 per year.
ICONIQ dropped a BANGER of a report, with all the key facts and figures on sales rep comp.
Here are the best takeaways:
College class room sizes are limited by physical constraints.
But virtual cohorts like
@MavenHQ
and newsletter platforms like
@substack
allow teachers to produce content at zero marginal cost per student.
This breaks down borders, both economic and geographic.
How do tech companies talk about their Cost of Revenue?
Well, it depends...
I’ll admit it - I probably talked about Cost of Revenue in hand wavy, theoretical kinda way for the first five years of my career (OK, first six).
I kinda sorta understood what was shoved up there from…
How do vertical SaaS companies make money?
It's called the Layer Cake Strategy
(and it generates $ billions):
Most vertical SaaS companies start by solving one specific use case for one industry persona, and then expand their offerings to cover other aspects of their day to…
Dilution is one of the most misunderstood concepts in startup land.
But many employees are afraid to ask for a simple explanation.
Here’s how it works:
@MavenHQ
@substack
The first area to be disrupted will be business education.
More specifically:
-private & public marketing investing,
-finance & accounting, and
-product marketing
Who are the potential teachers?
How can you get your hands on some of this content today (mostly for free)?
How do you calculate Net Dollar Retention Rate? Here's how 25 top tech companies do it. You can copy these real life examples:
(find the full breakdowns at )
The median CEO salary in the United States is $798,373.
There are multiple paths you can take to this powerful position.
If you're in business, here's what you should know about becoming a CEO:
How do marketplaces make money?
It’s called a take rate
If you’re talking the lingo, other common names for this type of middleman compensation include:
•Commission
•Vig
•Rake
I studied the economics of 35 marketplaces 🤑
Get full report
An estimated 327,000 people applied to work in private equity last year.
Less than 3% got a job.
Here's what you should know about the industry if you're looking to break in:
According to Bloomberg Law, there was $559 Billion in M&A activity in Q1 2023.
Here are the 9 most common M&A Strategies, all on one page, with real life examples.
“Beware of all green dashboards.”
This is one of my favorite stories about both the power and danger of metrics.
Metrics can be a proxy for truth, but only if you measure them correctly.
Don’t lose sight of the anecdotes.
According to the Boston Consulting Group, there was more than $1.7 Trillion in M&A deal activity in just the first half of 2023.
Here are the 9 most common M&A Strategies, all on one page, with real life examples.
I knew an entrepreneur who used to put all his checks to suppliers in the microwave
Here's the crazy story, and what it taught me about the cash conversion cycle
To go one level deeper, we can categorize private market investors by stage:
1/ Angel: Individuals
2/ Seed: 1st institutional check
3/ Growth: Series A - C
4/ Late Stage / Crossover: C through IPO
5/ Buyout: Majority control, Debt
Note: There IS OVERLAP
Let's dig into each
When a Billion Dollar Outcome Isn’t Enough:
Venture fund returns typically follow a power law (e.g., 80% of the returns are generated by 20% of the investments).
As a rule of thumb, investors will often want to see a scenario where any given company could theoretically return…
What I wish I knew as a first year CFO
5 timeless lessons from Mark Hawkins, former CFO of Salesforce
1. Know your business cold
You must know how your biz makes money, and what your biz spends money on, better than anyone else. Full stop.
Although you may not “own” the…
The State of the CFO Tech Stack as we enter 2024:
TL;DR:
3 observations:
I. The proliferation of FP&A tools
II. NetSuite never dies
III. A new Big 3 in expense management
2 opinions:
IV. How stuff gets bought has changed
V. How stuff gets trialed still needs to change
1…
First, it's important to know what a CFO's day-to-day responsibilities are.
They can be split into three buckets.
1. Financial Strategy,
2. Reporting, and
3. Book Keeping
COO's can be split into six types:
1. The Executor
2. The Change Agent
3. The Mentor
4. The Systems Wizard
5. The CFO as COO
6. The Sales and Marketing Genius
I’ve examined a lot of term sheets in my career.
So I decided to break down the key components
As well as the red flags that could hurt you
It’s all in todays mostly metrics issue
First, it's important to know what a CFO's day-to-day responsibilities are.
They can be split into three buckets.
1. Financial Strategy,
2. Reporting, and
3. Book Keeping
Yesterday my newsletter hit 5,000 subscribers.
I went from hopelessly screaming into the abyss to riding rocket ship.
This graphic sums up the journey.
Some humble tips for those who want to build an audience:
1/
Get a cup of coffee.
In this thread, I'll show you how to read and understand a company's Balance Sheet.
As investors, we should be able to judge businesses by looking at their financial statements.
And the Balance Sheet, of course, is 1 of 3 key financial statements:
Yesterday my newsletter hit 10,000 subscribers.
I went from hopelessly screaming into the abyss to riding rocket ship.
This graphic sums up the journey.
Some humble tips for those who want to build an audience:
Private Equity and Venture Capital are often used synonymously.
Both invest in private companies whose shares are not publicly traded on exchanges.
However, VCs generally invest earlier in a company's lifecycle than PE.
My goal is to create the best valuation and performance benchmarks specifically for tech operators.
If you are in Finance, Strategy, or Ops, this will help you translate what the outside world values to your target operating model.
Here are this week’s multiples:
Security unicorn Lacework is reportedly being acquired by rival Wiz for $150M to $200M, significantly less than the $8.3B it was previously valued at, and the $1.8B in capital it raised.
If that's the case, Wiz will acquire them for ~2x NTM Revenue.
How does the "middleman" make money?
It's something called a "Take Rate".
And getting your Take Rate right can make or break your biz...
Here's a crash course:
As a “finance” person I’m begrudgingly realizing:
-the CEO’s job is sales
-the law firm partner’s job is sales
-the investment banking MD’s job is sales
-the big four tax consultant’s job is sales
It’s not enough to just be an expert in your domain, you have to know how to sell
How top tech companies calculate ARR 👇
Annual recurring revenue isn't as straight forward as you'd think... I analyzed how 20 companies define and calculate their annual recurring revenue.
Regardless of whatever you think about ARR as a "good" measure of business success, or…
Dilution is one of the most misunderstood concepts in startup land.
But many employees are afraid to ask for a simple explanation.
Here’s how it works:
FP&A paved my road to CFO.
But this doesn’t mean the journey wasn’t full of its share of screw ups.
Here are 10 COSTLY boobytraps you'll encounter when budgeting for your startup:
Most people assume I became a startup CFO by staying up late to study balance sheets and build DCFs.
False.
I just copied what these CFOs said on FinTwit: