Perspectives

"What's our customer acquisition cost by segment?"

The CEO called me on a Tuesday. Couldn't figure out what was happening.

“I just have a feeling about this one.”

8:47am. Monday. The controller walks into the CEO's office and closes the door. "We have eight days of cash." Not eight weeks. Eight days. The CEO ...

Revenue doubled. Cash halved. The CEO couldn’t figure it out. “We’re winning,” he kept saying. “Look at the numbers.” He meant the top line. The ...

The hire looked perfect on paper. VP of Sales. Great track record. $280K total comp. The CEO ran the math: if she hits quota, we’ll 4x her cost in ...

"We have plenty of runway." That was Tuesday. By Friday, the same CEO was on the phone with his lawyer discussing bridge loan terms. What happened in ...

The conference room was silent. Wall of green metrics—OKRs achieved, EOS rocks completed, customer satisfaction soaring. “How,” the CEO asked his ...

Foundation Rhythm: What Actually Gets Installed in the First 30 Days URL: /perspectives/foundation-rhythm-what-actually-gets-installed

"What's our customer acquisition cost by segment?" The CEO looked at the CFO. The CFO looked at the VP of Sales. The VP of Sales looked at the table.

The CFO had been planning the transformation for six months. Forty-seven pages of requirements. Three vendor evaluations. Two steering committees. A ...

Day 22. Your board meeting is tomorrow. Finance is still reconciling October. Day 25. You finally see the numbers. The margin erosion started six ...

The board member's question was simple: "What's our customer acquisition cost by segment?" The CEO looked at the CFO. The CFO looked at the VP of ...

Week one: discovery interviews. Week four: current state analysis. Week eight: future state design. Week twelve: implementation roadmap. Week ...

Your finance stack looks impressive. ERP system. Planning software. BI tool. Expense management. Revenue recognition. Commission calculator. ...

The fractional CFO industry sells a beautiful lie: strategic financial leadership without the full-time cost. It sounds perfect. You get CFO-level ...

The consultant's paradox: if you build a system that requires your constant presence, you've failed. True transformation means building financial ...

Every financial transformation faces the same obstacles. After implementing financial rhythm in hundreds of companies, the resistance patterns are so ...

The hardest part of financial transformation isn't the technology or the processes—it's the people. After training hundreds of teams to adopt ...

Financial chaos has a signature pattern: random fire drills, reactive scrambling, perpetual surprises. Financial control has a different signature:

Most dashboards are where data goes to die. Dozens of charts nobody reads. Metrics that measure nothing. Reports that report on reports. After ...

Most financial forecasts are fiction. Annual budgets become obsolete by February. Five-year plans are fantasy. Monthly projections miss reality by ...

Every broken finance function shares the same symptom: no rhythm. They lurch from crisis to crisis, deadline to deadline, surprise to surprise. The ...

Most CEOs think they know where their money problems hide. They point to sales, to margins, to growth rates. They're usually looking in the wrong ...

Every company trapped in financial chaos believes their situation is unique. They're convinced their complexity, their industry, their specific ...

We guarantee 10x ROI in 12 months. Money back if we miss. In 200+ engagements, we've never written a refund check.

"Our situation is completely unique. We're not like other companies."I hear this in every first meeting. The CEO explains their special complexity. ...

Every CFO knows how to calculate ROI. Take the savings, divide by the investment, multiply by 100. Simple math that misses everything that actually ...

The Excel Archaeology That Was Killing Strategic Thinking Picture this: 47 Excel files scattered across 12 departments. Three weeks to answer "What's ...

The Paradox That Kills Successful Companies Revenue up 40%. Margins healthy. Growth trajectory perfect. Cash balance: $200,000. Days until payroll ...

The Hidden Cost of Your 20-Day Close Every month, while your competitors are making decisions with fresh data, you're still closing your books from ...

Every CEO chasing growth is sitting on a goldmine they can't see.

Boards and CEOs facing financial operational challenges often reach the same conclusion: "We need a fractional CFO to fix this." The logic seems ...

Every quarter, CFOs attend conferences where vendors promise that their software will "transform financial operations," "eliminate manual processes," ...

Every growing organization faces a critical choice: build systematic capabilities or rely on individual expertise. Most choose dependency without ...

Every Monday morning, finance teams across America gear up for another week of crisis management. Cash shortfalls appear overnight. Customer payment ...

Most companies operate in one of two planning extremes: short-term reactive management or long-term fantasy projections. Monthly financial reports ...

Twenty days to close your books isn't normal – it's a crisis. While you're still reconciling January, companies with Day 2 close are already ...

Six months is too long. Thirty days is too short. But 90 days? That's the sweet spot where transformation becomes possible without becoming ...

Every failing finance transformation makes the same mistake: starting with intelligence before building the foundation. It's like trying to ...

Every growing company hits the same invisible wall around $10 million in revenue. Not because of market saturation, competitive pressure, or ...

QuickBooks for accounting, Salesforce for CRM, Excel for analysis, Tableau for dashboards, NetSuite for inventory, ADP for payroll, and Asana for ...

"We have a cash problem." "That major client hasn't paid in 90 days." "We're missing budget by 40%." "The project went over by $200K." Every Monday ...

Revenue up 40%. Cash down 60%. Profit margins shrinking every quarter. Team size doubled, but profitability halved. Sound familiar? You're witnessing ...

"Let me run the numbers and get back to you." This seemingly reasonable response to prospect inquiries represents one of the most expensive phrases ...

"Twenty days to close the books? That's pretty good for our size." This statement, uttered confidently in boardrooms across America, represents one ...

Every CFO believes their finance team is running efficiently. The month-end close takes 20 days, but "that's industry standard." Reports get ...

Team incentive misalignment represents one of business's most expensive hidden costs, creating situations where individual departments optimize their ...

Business owners attempting to fix every operational inefficiency simultaneously guarantee failure through resource fragmentation and attention ...

Most business owners approach margin improvement with the same mindset that keeps them perpetually treading water—hoping for gradual, organic ...

Industry benchmarking has become the great mediocrity machine, ensuring that companies achieve average performance by average methods while market ...

Your monthly financial close is perfectly executed, comprehensively analyzed, and completely useless for strategic decision-making. While your team ...

The Entrepreneurial Operating System (EOS) has transformed how countless organizations run meetings and manage execution. Yet most Level 10 meetings ...

Executive misalignment on financial fundamentals creates organizational chaos that ripples through every level. When the CEO celebrates growth while ...

Traditional OKRs optimize for measurable, near-term outcomes while systematically undervaluing investments that create future opportunities. This ...

Most OKRs celebrate achieving goals while ignoring the capital required to reach them. This oversight creates a perverse dynamic where teams destroy ...

Global expansion in fintech transforms simple operations into complex webs of entities, regulations, and currencies. What begins as a single-entity ...

Traditional OKRs celebrate revenue growth and cost reduction while ignoring the lifeblood of business: cash flow. Departments hit their targets, ...

Implementing Financial Controls and Compliance Systems for Regulated Entities The moment a fintech touches regulated activities, the game changes ...

The moment every fintech dreams of—explosive growth—often becomes an operational nightmare. Systems that work perfectly at 10,000 users crash at ...

The comfortable lie of blended unit economics has destroyed more fintechs than any technical failure. While management celebrates improving overall ...

Traditional ROI calculations fail to capture the temporal dynamics that determine fintech survival. While everyone obsesses over eventual returns, ...

The modern fintech tech stack resembles Frankenstein's monster—best-in-class components stitched together with API calls and hope. Each system excels ...

Traditional scenario planning in fintech fails because each function plans for their own version of the future. Finance models revenue scenarios, ...

The most powerful moment in a CFO-board relationship occurs when suspicion transforms into partnership. This transformation doesn't happen through ...

The accusation of sandbagging often misses the real culprit: systemic disconnection that makes accurate forecasting nearly impossible. As revealed in

The transition from fintech startup to scaled financial institution often crashes against the rocks of regulatory compliance. Unlike technical debt ...

Every CFO knows the temptation: add a little cushion to guidance, beat expectations, everyone's happy. But as explored in why even great CFOs get ...

The difference between fintechs that close funding efficiently and those that endure painful, protracted processes comes down to one factor: ...

Pricing in fintech represents the ultimate intersection of mathematics, psychology, and strategy. Unlike traditional software where pricing ...

The most dangerous aspect of delayed financial insights isn't the delay itself—it's how problems compound exponentially during the blind period. As ...

The traditional annual budgeting cycle breaks down completely in fintech, where regulatory landscapes shift quarterly, product opportunities emerge ...

"Our financial reporting is best-in-class," the CFO assured the board six months before the crisis. This confidence in "good enough" visibility has ...

Traditional burn rate management treats cash consumption as a fixed reality to be endured. Modern fintech success requires treating burn as a dynamic ...

The comfortable rhythm of monthly reporting feels responsible, even prudent. Close the books, analyze the numbers, present findings, make decisions. ...

The fundamental challenge in fintech capital allocation isn't choosing between growth, compliance, and profitability—it's optimizing all three ...

The fear is palpable when organizations first explore implementing MMA (Management, Measurement, Action) frameworks. CFOs worry about their ...

Why Great Consulting Firms Still Bleed Cash—And What to Do About It Based on insights from Russell Fette, Fractional CFO | Puget Sound CFO

Effective risk management in fintech requires a fundamental shift from reactive reporting to proactive monitoring. Asfinancial controls ...

Most executives believe they have sophisticated financial systems because they can generate any report within minutes. This fundamental ...

The fundamental challenge in fintech growth lies not in acquiring customers but in acquiring profitable customers. Whilecash flow forecasting for ...

Understanding the execution gap that causes companies with perfect scorecards to run out of cash reveals a fundamental truth: excellence in financial ...

Understanding why industry standards can make you mediocre is crucial before diving into benchmarking strategies. In fintech, the paradox of ...

In regulated fintech, liquidity isn't just about having enough cash to meet obligations—it's about proving to regulators that you can survive ...

The difference between fintech leaders and followers often comes down to one factor: decision speed. While traditional financial institutions rely ...

In the fast-paced world of fintech, success isn't just about innovative products or slick user interfaces—it's about measuring what matters. The ...

The presentation was flawless. The CPO walked through their OKR cascade with pride—every objective aligned, every key result measurable, every team ...

The conference room was silent. The CEO stared at the wall of green metrics—OKRs achieved, EOS rocks completed, customer satisfaction soaring. "How," ...

Partner compensation is where strategy meets reality in professional services firms. You can have the best strategy, clear vision, and talented ...

The professional services landscape is littered with firms that “grew themselves to death.” They had the ambition, talent, and clients—but lacked a ...

Every professional services firm wrestles with the same challenge: revenue ebbs and flows like the tide—predictable, yet often feeling out of ...

Contract negotiation is too often seen as a legal hurdle standing between you and project execution—a costly blind spot that silently erodes profits. ...

Revenue forecasting in professional services requires a fundamentally different approach than traditional product-based models. Unlike manufacturing ...

The Pricing Choice That Shapes Your Firm’s Growth and Profitability Every professional services leader wrestles with this fundamental question: ...

Revenue doesn’t tell the whole story.

Why Most Professional Services Firms Stay Stuck with Cost-Plus Pricing If you’re managing a professional services firm, you may realize your pricing ...

Most SaaS companies believe budgeting is a fundamental choice:

Why Most Professional Services Firms Are Flying Blind on Performance You’re running a professional services firm where success feels as much art as ...

Why SaaS Companies Outgrow Their Financial Tools So Quickly Early-stage SaaS companies can get by with:

In SaaS, pricing isn't just a number on a contract — it's a strategic lever that impacts acquisition, expansion, churn, and long-term valuation.

Why Most Professional Services Firms Stumble in Pipeline and Backlog Management If you lead a professional services firm, you know the chaos of ...

As a SaaS CEO, you've probably seen dozens of dashboards filled with endless numbers. And let's be honest—most of them aren’t helping. They confuse ...

High-growth SaaS companies often focus relentlessly on short-term metrics — bookings, ARR targets, fundraising milestones.

Global SaaS expansion opens doors — to new markets, talent pools, and growth opportunities. But it also opens Pandora’s box when it comes to finance.

In SaaS, speed is an asset — but only when it’s matched by visibility. As companies scale, financial complexity compounds. Without strong financial ...

Your industry benchmarks are a comforting lie.They promise insight, but deliver imitation. They offer context, but promote conformity. They make you ...

Cash is the oxygen of SaaS.

For professional services firms, utilization rate is one of the most closely watched performance metrics. And for good reason — it’s directly tied to ...

Average metrics are lying to you.That pristine 95% retention rate you proudly report to investors? It might be masking major structural problems ...

Most SaaS companies are drowning in metrics while dying of thirst for actual insights.I've seen it countless times: leadership teams proudly ...

Your subscription business is growing. MRR charts are climbing, investors are excited, and the team is celebrating.Meanwhile, your bank account tells ...

SaaS models are often praised for their predictability — recurring revenue, repeatable motion, clear growth paths. But the reality is: markets shift, ...

In professional services, it's easy to celebrate revenue growth — but much harder to sustain it if you’re not clear on project-level profitability.

SaaS revenue growth looks simple on the surface — but recognizing it correctly is anything but.

Rapid growth is what every SaaS company wants — but very few are prepared for operationally.

Introduction For longevity founders, the path from startup to successful exit is a marathon, not a sprint. With long product development cycles, ...

Introduction In the fast-evolving longevity industry, accurately forecasting revenue is both critically important and uniquely challenging. Longevity ...

Introduction For longevity companies in the midst of rapid scaling, burn rate is the metric that keeps CFOs up at night. Striking the right balance ...

Introduction Few decisions impact the trajectory of a longevity company as much as when and how to raise capital. For founders navigating the ...

Introduction For longevity companies in the midst of rapid scaling, working capital can make or break your ability to sustain growth. With long ...