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“CJ, what’s your creative process look like?”

A sign you’re a new parent still attempting to iron out your identity - Spotify’s “Wrapped” reveals your #1 song in 2023 was “Wheels on the Bus” by Raffi… closely followed by “Big Dog” by Benny the Butcher and Lil Wayne.

2023 was a year of transition in a lot of ways:

  • It was my first full fiscal year as a CFO (note: didn’t get fired)

  • It was my second year as a dad (and first year as a father of two)

  • It was my first year as the Joe Rogan of Metrics, launching the Run the Numbers Podcast (shout out Producers Nancy and Nat, you rock)

  • And it was my first time putting out two (dope) pieces of Mostly metrics content each week (the keys of my dusty Lenovo are BEGGING for a break).

The metrics say there are 23,869 more CFOs and FinStratOps nerds reading this compared to last year. That’s +459 people each week for a whole year! Whoah!

I’m determined to improve in each of these areas of life in 2024.

So here’s what’s in store for Mostly metrics readers in the new year…

Surgeon General’s warning:

Make sure you aren’t chewing bubble gum & your shoe laces are securely tied before reading any further…

As many of you probably realized, Mostly metrics went on a series of (highly publicized) dates with Brex in 2023. Things heated up, and we’ve decided to take a big next step, moving in together and signing a three month lease…

Brex will be our presenting sponsor for Q1 of 2024.

This was after careful consideration, and meeting one another’s parents (I interviewed Art Levy, Chief Strategy Officer here on MM, and Michael Tannenbaum, CFO / COO graced the Run the Numbers podcast).

This is great news. Because your boy LOVES writing, and HATES selling ads. So yea, lock it in baby. My vintage IKEA is already en route to the new crib.

Note: Don’t tell Brex, but my wife says that there’s a 75% chance I’ll forget to wipe down the counters with Windex after dinner.)

And over on the paid side of things, after extensive user research from our kickass product team (aka me zipping one-off emails to random readers from my iPhone 7 in between sets of pull ups at the gym) we’ve decided to revamp the structure to provide “more value”.

In 2023 I discovered people want to go deeper, and get incredibly tactical, on core finance, strategy, and ops topics. Our Annual Budget Series really brought this to light - people lost their fucking minds over “Modeling Pipeline Coverage” and “Building Sales Capacity”. Who knew!?

This inspired me to think about what else could be a “series”. I decided that each month should be able to stand on its own as a single topical (or is that the lotion term?) playbook.

Here’s the (preliminary) programming we’ve scheduled (subject to change, as I may be deeply inspired by something I learn myself as a CFO):

  • January: Board Preparation and Management

    • Participants, structure, and mistakes to avoid

    • Material prep, useful templates, and metrics to include

  • February: Startup Fundraising

    • Getting your story right

    • Investor targeting

    • How to run a successful fundraising process

    • How to review a term sheet

  • March: Treasury

    • What bank accounts should I keep my cash in?

    • How do venture debt facilities work?

    • How do interest rates and the Fed actually impact me?

  • April: A crash course in Investor Relations

    • How CFOs prepare for earnings calls

    • Tools for investor targeting and research

    • Beat and raise models

  • May: IPO Processes

    • Types of offerings

    • Roadshow timelines

    • Components of an S1

    • Metrics to hit

  • June: Middlemen & Take Rates

    • Marketplaces

    • Platforms

    • The Chicken or the Egg Problem

  • July: Competitive Moats

    • Types of competitive moats

    • Competitive moats in action

  • August: Annual Planning

    • ROUND 2 MY PEOPLES!!!

  • September: Cap Table Management

    • How a 409a works

    • Getting rich off secondaries

    • Dilution

  • October: The CFO Software Stack

    • Planning and forecasting

    • Payments

    • Record keeping and payroll

    • BI and Analytics

  • November: Vertical Software

    • Owning the control point

    • The “layer cake” strategy

    • Harnessing the power of messy data

  • December: Sales Compensation

    • Commission rate benchmarking

    • Types of variable comp

    • Do SPIFFS actually work?

(Shameless plug to get onboard now if you see a topic mentioned here that you are excited for)

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