What a year, you guys

A lotta nerds out there, huh

I put out 256 pieces of content in 2024. That’s a lot of newsletters and podcasts.

It’s now been four years of babbling on about SaaS metrics and dilution. Whew!

I remember when I put out the first few newsletters the execs I was working for at the time said this was career suicide… what are you doing???

I was like, well first of all it’s a Substack, not an Only Fans, I’m barely showing any skin, and I don’t think net dollar retention is all that risqué.

They told me it’s either us or this blog thing.

I had three thousand subscribers at the time and wasn’t making a dollar.

But it gave me energy. And a few smart people had reached out to say they liked what I was putting out. I don’t know what it was. Or why I thought this was more important. But it was.

So I said fuck that I quit.

And they said you can’t quit because you don’t work here any more.

I said tomato tomato🍅

They also thought I wasn’t experienced enough to become a CFO. They said no way does this guy get a gig, lol. He’s too young. He’s too different. He’s too blah blah blah.

But luckily someone in that initial reader group thought I was cool, and introduced me to some companies. And I literally wrote my way into my first cfo role.

September of 2022. Never got to play D1 football. So this was my National Signing Day.

What’s transpired over the last four years has been a fun build. From a newsletter, to a podcast, to now a community of friends (many of whom are 100x smarter than me).

And that’s the true gift in this journey.

I think the internet is the last true democracy. You can write yourself into any room. I feel lucky to have written my way into wherever I am now.

While I don’t take myself too seriously, I do take my new role seriously… as a representative and a storyteller for the hard work CFOs and Operators put into growing their companies and moving innovation forward. Hopefully I can make them proud in that sense, and never lose the plot.

Located in Morgantown, West Virginia, this stadium has a capacity of 60,000 and is home to the West Virginia Mountaineers.

BTW - we went from 38,177 to 60,000 subscribers this year.

A lot of nerds out there, huh?

I try not to think about it too much.

The best advice I got this year was from Sales Guy Matthew:

“You’re kinda weird man.

Make sure that doesn’t change.”

Here’s to letting our freak flags fly in 2025. SaaS metrics 4 life.

Top 5 Posts of 2024

We not only perfected our board materials, we also dove deep into the financials of OnlyFans, covered the Rubrik IPO, and went DEEP on ARPU.

1. Your Complete Guide to Board Meetings (Part 2): Meeting Materials and Templates

2. Your Complete Guide to ARR

3. Emergency post: WTF is going on at Carta?

4. Your Complete Guide to Network Effects: Marketplace Business Models

5. Your Complete Guide to Sales Rep Compensation - Part I: Designing Comp Plans