Fractional CFO | Helping Founders Scale Beyond $2M ARR with Strategic Finance & OKRs | Founder @ FounderFirst

I didn’t grow up pitching VCs or building apps.

I grew up in Dimitrovgrad, Bulgaria, where I didn’t speak a word of English and didn’t know anyone in tech.
But I knew how to spot opportunity, adapt quickly, and keep going.

At 17, I taught myself English. At 19, I earned a scholarship to study in the U.S. 
I came with a suitcase, less than $300, no backup plan, and did whatever scrappy thing it took to stay afloat.

Then on April 15, 2015, something clicked.
The startup world found me. And for the first time, I felt like I fit.
The chaos, the creativity, the responsibility - it was mine to carry, mine to shape.

What started as a leap into the unknown became a decade of building behind the scenes.

Since then, I’ve worked with more than 20 early- and growth-stage startups, both VC-backed and bootstrapped, across B2B SaaS, Fintech, and Edtech. 
I’ve helped scale revenue from $500K to $20M, grow teams from 10 to 200, and build finance and ops functions from scratch.
I’ve navigated pivots, layoffs, down rounds, near-bankruptcies, exits, and helped founders get to the other side.

In 2024, I launched FounderFirst to do exactly that: support founders and leadership teams with the structure, clarity, and tools they need to grow sustainably.

What I Do:
- Finance: Fractional CFO support, modeling, forecasting, and investor-ready reporting
- Strategy: OKRs and operating models that don’t die after kickoff
- Coaching: For founders and finance leads navigating the messy middle

When I’m not working with founders, you’ll find me planning my next national park hike or deep in a great book (suggestions always welcome).

Curious what's possible on your scaling journey?

Don't be a stranger. Book an intro call: https://shorturl.at/kjU5J

She cashed out her 401(k) to sell scrubs.
Ten years later, FIGS went public at $4.6B.

At the time, Trina Spear was “living the dream” on paper: 
• Harvard MBA 
• Wall Street pedigree 
• A high-paying job at Blackstone 
• Everything her Cuban refugee parents worked for

But success that looks good on the outside hits differently on the inside. She wanted meaning, not prestige. Then came the call that changed everything. A mutual friend connected her with Heather Hasson.

She had an idea, simple, but radical:
“What if we made scrubs people actually want to wear?”
Heather had seen her best friend, a nurse practitioner, wear the same boxy, uncomfortable uniform day in and day out.
Cheap fabric. No pockets. No pride.
No one had thought to make scrubs better.
Because no one had thought healthcare workers deserved better.
That single insight lit a fire.
Trina couldn’t stop thinking about it.
Within a few days, she booked a flight to LA.
Met Heather in person.
And said the words that would change both of their lives:
“I’m in.”

They didn’t have funding.
They didn’t have supply chains.
They didn’t even have a product line.
But they had purpose.
So they started small.
Selling scrubs out of the back of a car.
Showing up at hospitals during shift changes.
Swiping credit cards on the sidewalk.
Shipping orders from their own apartments.

Investors didn’t get it.
They said the market was “too niche.”
That doctors didn’t care about style.
That nurses wouldn’t pay for comfort.

They were wrong.
Trina and Heather didn’t just sell scrubs.
They built a community.
They made healthcare workers feel seen, celebrated, and respected.
And they did it profitably, sustainably, and on their own terms.

In 2021, FIGS became the first company led by two female founders to IPO on the NYSE.
$4.6 billion.

If you're building something the world doesn't understand yet..
This is your reminder:
You don't need permission.
You just need one "yes."
Maybe it's yours.

Mariya Valeva

At 34, she rang the Nasdaq bell, holding her toddler in her arms.
A $1.6B valuation.
Katrina Lake had just taken her company, Stitch Fix, public.

A company she built from her apartment floor, while pregnant. Twice.
She didn’t come from a family of founders.
She didn’t have a network of angels or tech mentors to call.
Her mother was a teacher who immigrated from Japan.
Her father, a transplant doctor who believed deeply in hard work and quiet sacrifice.

She grew up straddling two worlds - Japanese at home, American at school.
Learning early that success didn’t come from confidence, but discipline.

Years later, Katrina found herself in business school, surrounded by future bankers and VCs.
But she had no interest in finance.
She wanted to build something… useful.
The idea started simple:
What if busy women could get clothes picked out for them - based on data, but curated by a human?

She used SurveyMonkey to collect style preferences.
Tracked feedback in spreadsheets.
Packed boxes from her apartment floor.
And mailed them one by one.
This wasn’t a “tech company” in the traditional sense.
No SaaS margins. No app. No virality.
Just a belief that personalization - done right - could scale.

Most investors didn’t get it.
Too operational.
Too slow.
Too… retail.
And maybe, too female.
So she ran lean.
Proved retention.
And let the numbers speak.

By 2017, Stitch Fix was ready.
She took it public, and made history.
The youngest woman to IPO a tech company.
A new kind of founder.
One who didn’t “fit the mold.”
She just built her own.

A second-generation immigrant founder, raised to keep her head down -
who ended up showing the world what leadership can actually look like.
Quiet. Relentless. Human.
And maybe that’s what more of us need to see right now.

You don’t truly understand a business until you’ve had to clean up the mess.

It’s easy to give advice when you’re not the one dealing with the aftermath.
Easy to sound smart when your strategy lives in slides - not in systems, team dynamics, missed targets, or investor pressure.

But business isn’t built in theory.
It’s built in the uncomfortable.
The tradeoffs.
The reworks.
The silent pivots.
The “we thought this would work” moments.

That’s where real insight comes from - not from watching, but from staying.
From living the consequences of your decisions and iterating through them.

Because until you’ve felt the problem, your solution is just a guess.

*Video credits: simplyougrow insta

She landed in LA with no English. 
A toddler in one arm. A suitcase in the other. 
And $200 to her name.

She didn’t come for fame.
She came because there was no future left for her in communist Romania.

The early days were brutal.

She worked in beauty salons where no one could pronounce her name.
Where she smiled politely through conversations she didn’t understand.
Where she scrubbed floors, offered facials, and quietly studied faces.
Every night she came home to a silent apartment. 
Turned on Oprah. 
Took notes like a student. 
Whispered new English words until they became hers.

Her daughter did homework on the salon floor.
Because childcare was too expensive.
Because failure was not an option.

One day she asked if she could offer something new. 
“Eyebrow shaping,” she said. 
The salon owner laughed:
“No one in America cares about eyebrows.”
But Anastasia did. 
She had studied art in Romania.
She understood symmetry, bone structure, balance.

So she did them anyway. 
She mapped the “golden ratio” on every face she touched. 
At first, she pretended she had celebrity clients just to be taken seriously. 
Then one day, she didn’t have to pretend. 

Naomi Campbell walked in.
Then Cindy Crawford.
Then Oprah. 
The salon turned into a brand.
The brand turned into a movement.

And Anastasia Beverly Hills became a $500M global beauty empire. 
But the real story lives in the parts no one saw: 
• The nights she cried from loneliness. 
• The mornings she got up anyway. 
• The clients who ignored her. 
• The ones who changed her life. 
• The silence she endured before the applause. 

Anastasia didn’t wait for permission.
Didn’t wait for validation.
Didn’t wait for the world to notice. 
She kept showing up
with shaky hands, a steady vision,
and the quiet courage to build in the dark. 

Because sometimes the world can’t see it yet,
until you shape it into something they can’t ignore.

Late nights. Tough calls. Cash Burns. The weight of your team's future on your shoulders.

Hey there, founder. I see you. I've been you.

90% of startups fail. Of the 10% that survive, many struggle to scale beyond initial traction. Reaching $1M to $10M ARR is a critical and challenging journey. You choose which path you want to follow.

If you want to be in this 10%, keep reading.

My journey:
→ 10+ years supporting Tech founders like you scale from $500K to $11M ARR
→ 2x founding team member
→ 2x grew teams from 2 to 200+ 
→ 3x built finance, ops, and people ops from scratch
→ 2x pivoted entire business models when everything was on the line

[Tough, right? But your vision matters. You have what it takes.]

That's why I started FounderFirst. I've seen too many brilliant ideas stall out, too many founders stuck on their scaling journey. It hurts every time.

Working with 10+ startups—from bootstrapped to Series A/B, spanning B2B and B2C SaaS models in edtech, fintech, and other tech sectors—has taught me a crucial lesson: success often hinges on the right support at the right time.

Every challenge, every pivot, every late night has been a lesson—and now, these hard-earned insights are the foundation of how I help founders like you.

Scaling to $10M ARR isn't about fancy strategies.

Scaling to $10M ARR is about rolling up our sleeves and making your vision work. We turn your biggest hurdles into your greatest strengths.

This is what you can expect if you contact me and we start working together:
📈3x overall performance growth in 12 months
⚙️ 40% boost in operational efficiency through targeted process optimization
🌱 50%+ increase in team alignment via tailored cross-functional integration methods
🚀100% of core business processes optimized within 90 days

No generic playbooks—just bespoke operating systems that work.

I'm (and have been for the past 10+ years) in the trenches with tech's future at Techstars, Harvard Innovation Labs, 500 Global, and Y Combinator.

Because scaling your startup isn't something you have to do alone.

Scaling your startup isn't just numbers.

It's your dreams, your team's future, your impact on the world.

Ready to turn sleepless nights into breakthroughs? Let's talk, founder to founder.

🫴Reach out:
→ Email: mariya@founderfirstpartners.co
→ Website: founderfirstpartners.co
→ Book a Free Discovery Call: https://calendly.com/mariya-founderfirstpartners/initialchat?month=2024-09

Victoria Beckham spent £70K a year on office plants.
And £15K more to water them.
She admitted it, in her Netflix documentary.

Everyone laughing at that.
But I totally respect her honesty.
At least she admitted her mistakes.

Because futile spending isn’t always a wall of designer greenery.
In a scaling business, it hides in plain sight.

Here’s what it actually looks like:
– A senior hire brought in too early (with no clear role)
– “Just in case” software subscriptions no one questions
– Monthly retainer agencies where no one knows the deliverables
– Internal teams doing what AI could now do faster, cleaner, cheaper
– A “culture budget” that’s really a morale patch for broken systems

None of these feel like bad decisions at the time.
They feel necessary. Strategic. Progressive.
Until one day, the runway’s shorter, the burn’s higher, and you can’t quite explain where the money went.

Futile spend isn’t just wasted cash.
It’s a signal.
That the business is operating without enough visibility.
And fixing it doesn’t mean cutting everything.

It means learning to ask:
“Is this helping us grow or just helping us feel in motion?”

Victoria had her plants.
You probably have something too.

Mediocrity doesn’t show up wearing a red flag. 
It walks in looking polished.

Well-spoken. Highly recommended. 
It nods in meetings.

It says the right things.
It drops work that’s “fine.” 
It hides behind momentum. 
And in teams where everyone’s good, it gets a pass because calling it out feels rude.
Disruptive. Unnecessary. 

But here’s the cost: 
One fuzzy deliverable becomes two. 
One vague decision sets a precedent. 
One missed standard quietly resets the bar.
And the longer you avoid naming it, the more “OK” becomes the new normal. 
Until one day, you look around and realise you’re solving the wrong problems.

The hardest part of leading exceptional people? 
Having the courage to tell them when their work isn’t. 
Not because you don’t believe in them.
But because you do. 

That’s the line between nice leadership and real leadership.

*Video credits: simplyougrow insta

She sold her company for $1B.
Then she bought 3 football teams.
But that’s not where her story starts.

It starts in South Korea.
With two parents who gave up their wedding savings so their daughter could go to America.
Michele Kang arrived in the U.S. with nothing but a dream and a dictionary.
She didn’t speak English.
She didn’t have money.
But she had this unshakable belief: “My place is not here. It’s out there. And I’ll figure it out.”

So she studied, obsessively.
Worked 16-hour shifts at Dairy Queen to pay tuition.
Got into the University of Chicago.
Then Yale.
Then leadership roles at Northrop Grumman, where she 4x’d their healthcare division.
And in 2008 - in the middle of a recession - while battling breast cancer, she launched Cognosante from her garage.

A decade later?
She sold it to Accenture for over $1 billion.
Most people would retire after that.
She didn't.
She bought a football team.
Then another.
Then another.
- Washington Spirit
- Olympique Lyonnais Féminin
- London City Lionesses

And built Kynisca Sports, the first global ownership platform for women’s football.
But this isn’t about owning teams.
It’s about owning change.

Michele is pouring millions into women’s sports science, athlete health, and gear designed specifically for women.
Because for decades, women have trained in systems built for men.
She’s not here to play along.
She’s here to build a whole new game.

Google paid over $600 million to acquire a company…
…that was losing nearly $15M per year.

No product.
No revenue.
No business model.
Just a vision.

That company? DeepMind.

It started in London in 2010 with a single, audacious question:
“Can we solve intelligence, then use it to solve everything else?”

Demis Hassabis, a neuroscientist and chess prodigy, joined forces with Shane Legg and Mustafa Suleyman.
They didn’t build an app. They built a thesis.
A lab, not a startup.

Their early AI learned to play Atari from scratch - no code, no cheats.
Just pure learning.
It was a proof of concept for machine intuition.

Investors didn’t see revenue.
They saw potential.
Early backers included Elon Musk, Peter Thiel, Jaan Tallinn, and Founders Fund.
People who don’t just fund companies, they fund shifts in thinking.

In 2014, Google acquired DeepMind.
But it wasn’t just a deal. It was a negotiation on DeepMind’s terms:
✔️ Full research independence
✔️ An AI ethics board
✔️ No military use
✔️ Control over hiring and direction

Since then, DeepMind has delivered:
AlphaGo, AlphaFold, AlphaStar, AlphaDev - breakthroughs in games, biology, and algorithms.
None of this looked investable in 2010.
But it worked, because they made the long-term undeniable.

DeepMind didn’t chase traction.
They chased truth.

0 $$$. 0 followers. A mic held together with duct tape.
Now? A $5.2B empire, built by LOSING money on purpose.

Most people think MrBeast just went viral.
But behind the scenes? He engineered a GTM machine.

→ Phase 1: Global distribution
- Videos dubbed in 40+ languages
- Cross-platform syndication with Jellysmack
- Watch-time-optimized stunts as retention hacks

→ Phase 2: Audience-led product launch
Before launching Feastables (now $215M/year), he knew exactly:
- What his viewers clicked
- What they’d buy
- How to drive action inside the video itself
The result? A full-stack CPG drop:
- Retail + DTC launch
- In-video giveaways and gamification
- Real-time conversion tracking from content to shelf

→ Phase 3: Let content fund the engine
He spends $3M+ per video, and expects zero profit.
Because the real return is in:
- Brand deals
- Product sales
- Data ownership
- Long-term IP

All of this is wrapped in a holding company:
Beast Industries, running content, CPG, software, and investment under one roof.

This wasn’t a fluke.
It was a financial and GTM playbook, hidden in plain sight.

What if the most important thing you’re building…

isn’t the product?

It’s the infrastructure no one sees.
The way your tools talk to each other.
The decisions that compound quietly.
The systems that make speed sustainable.

Great companies don’t just ship features,
they design for what comes next.
The right architecture today = less chaos at scale.
Better margins.
Faster pivots.
Real defensibility.
You’re not just building tech.
You’re laying track for the future.

*Video credits: simplyougrow insta

“She’s just a YouTuber.”
And yet… she turned that audience into $33M in coffee sales in 2025 only..

..and she didn’t do it the way most creators try to.
Here’s how Emma Chamberlain monetized influence like a founder, not a content creator:

→ Chamberlain Coffee gave her her ownership, not affiliate links.
Emma launched her own brand so every post built long-term enterprise value, not just one-off payouts.

→ Audience as pre-seed fund. 
Before raising capital, her fans funded the first batch.

→ Reinvested, not rewarded. 
Instead of taking profits out, she reinvested in the company.

→ Distribution earned through data. 
Target and Whole Foods didn’t buy the hype, they bought sell-through.

→ Profitability on purpose. 
In 2024, she chose to slow down.

→ Community as R&D.
Every new SKU - matcha, RTDs, bundles - came straight from customer feedback.

→ Product before promotion. 
She didn’t just pose with it.

Emma Chamberlain didn’t just sell coffee.
She monetized trust, timing, and operational leverage, and built a $33M brand that could now sell for 10x that.

The play isn’t viral reach.
It’s how you convert it.

She was once called “the next Steve Jobs.”
Wore the black turtleneck.
Raised $900M.
Built a $9B company.
And fooled everyone, from Henry Kissinger to Walgreens.

Her name? Elizabeth Holmes.
Her company? Theranos.
And what she built wasn’t just a fraud, it was a mirror held up to the worst parts of startup culture.
The story most people know ends in courtrooms.

But the story every founder should care about started years earlier—with decisions that looked harmless at first.
Here’s what really broke Theranos:

🔻 1. A board that looked impressive but knew nothing.
Former Secretaries of State, military generals, diplomats…
Not a single person with expertise in diagnostics, lab testing, or medtech.
Holmes didn’t just recruit power, she weaponized credibility.
And it worked. Until it didn’t.

🔻 2. Financials built for fiction.
In 2015, Theranos told investors they’d earn $1B in revenue.
They earned… $100k.
There was no CFO. No proper audits. Just slide decks, storytelling, and aggressive forward-looking statements that had zero operational basis.

🔻 3. Culture built on silence.
Whistleblowers were intimidated with lawsuits.
Employees were monitored and isolated across departments.
Even lab directors who raised concerns about patients getting false test results were ignored, or pushed out.

🔻 4. No product–just a story.
Theranos said they could run 240+ tests on a drop of blood.
The truth? Most tests were run on third-party machines.
The Edison device didn’t just underperform, it couldn’t reliably run a single panel.
But they kept selling the vision. Because the story was worth more than the science.

🔻 5. Governance built for optics, not oversight.
The board didn’t challenge Holmes, because they didn’t know what to challenge.
There were no audit committees, no compliance function, no scientific advisory panel.
When the CEO is also the Chair, and the board is handpicked by her…

🔻 6. A loan that prolonged the inevitable.
Near the end, they secured a $100M loan from Fortress Investment Group, collateralized by Theranos’ patents.
After the company collapsed, those patents were used to sue legit COVID test developers.
The fraud didn’t just end, it echoed through the ecosystem.

This wasn’t a tech failure.
This was a governance failure. A finance failure. A leadership failure.
One that scaled with every headline, every funding round, and every unanswered question.

Theranos didn’t collapse because they ran out of money.
They collapsed because they ran out of lies that people were willing to believe.

“We hired a CFO.”
Cool. What’s your gross margin?
“…Uhh.” 🫠

This happens way more than you think.
Founders outsource finance thinking it’s a fast-track to scaling. But if you:
→ Can’t explain your revenue model in 2 sentences
→ Don’t know your unit economics
→ Can’t tie burn to milestones…

You’re the bottleneck.
I’ve worked with 100+ SaaS and B2B businesses, and the root problem is always the same:
No financial infrastructure.

So what do most founders do? Outsource their numbers to a third-party “fixer”
❌ Hire an affordable offshore bookkeeper for $299 a month
❌ Rely on generic finance agency that doesn’t get the model and business from day 1
❌ Assume someone else is “handling it” and “taking care of it”

But without clear understanding of your numbers, you're not delegating, you're gambling.
You don’t need to do the bookkeeping.
But you do need to own the strategy behind the numbers.
Before you delegate, know this:
✅ The financial ecosystem your business operates in (SaaS, eCommerce, services, etc.)
✅ How pricing → margin → cash flow
✅ What it really costs to hit your next milestone
✅ How your runway shifts when things break
✅ Which numbers tell the truth (not just the story)

When you understand this,
then you can delegate.

Until then? 
You're not handing over financials, you're handing over control.

You show up in front of 5 million people.
Pitch your company.
And get rejected on national TV.

What do you do next?

If you’re Jamie Siminoff, you go back to work.

You rebuild.
You fix your margins.
You dial in your acquisition costs.
You scale.
Then Amazon buys your company (Ring) for $1 billion.
No Shark needed.
But he’s not the only one.

Let’s look at what the “rejected” SharkTank founders had in common 👇

↳ Poppi
- Said no to early Shark money.
- Focused on product velocity, strong DTC economics, and repeat purchase behavior.
- PepsiCo just acquired them for $1.65B.

↳ Kodiak Cakes
- Turned down offers.
- Why? Because they knew their margin profile didn’t justify giving up that much equity.
- Bootstrapped to $160M+ in revenue and a ~$500M valuation.

↳ The Bouqs
- No deal.
- Built solid ops, lean CAC, and high repeat order rates.
- Now at $60M+ revenue with a 9-figure valuation.

↳ Swimply
- “Niche side hustle,” they said.
- Founder focused on supply growth, retention, and liquidity.
- Now valued at $250M.

It’s not “they didn’t give up.”
It’s not about ego or rejection stories.
It’s that they understood their business model better than the investors did.

Before asking for funding, they had:
✅ Healthy contribution margin
✅ Repeatable acquisition channels
✅ Real traction with real customers

If you’re raising without knowing these - you’re not fundraising, you’re gambling.
Know your margins.
Model your unit economics.
Build the kind of business investors regret passing on.
Then Shark or no Shark,
you win.

From $21K in savings..
..To $380M acquisition.

Built on a Jamaican grandmother’s dream. And generations of women who healed before Google.

Beatrice Dixon didn’t have a roadmap.
She had roots.
She grew up in a Jamaican household where healing wasn’t found in a pharmacy, it was
passed down through hands and herbs.
So when she battled a relentless infection for 8 months - and doctors failed her - she turned inward. That night, her late grandmother appeared in a dream. She handed Beatrice a recipe: herbs, oils, intuition.

Beatrice woke up. Wrote it down.
Mixed it. Used it.
It worked.
That homemade formula became the foundation of The Honey Pot Company, the first plant-based, Black-owned feminine care brand to hit shelves at Target.

But nothing about her journey was easy.
- Started with just $21K in savings
- Filled bottles by hand
- Sold from the back of her car
- Slept on friends’ couches
- Rejected by investors who didn’t “get it”
They called it “too niche.”
What they meant was: too Black. Too feminine. Too unfamiliar.
But Beatrice knew better.
Because her Jamaican grandmother knew better.

She scaled that vision to:
- $121M in revenue
- 30,000+ stores nationwide
- A $380M acquisition in 2024, with Beatrice still as CEO

And she still gives back.
→ Donating products to shelters
→ Advocating for reproductive health
→ Mentoring other underestimated founders
Because this wasn’t just about feminine care.
It was about ownership, visibility, and breaking generational cycles.

Beatrice Dixon didn’t just build a brand.
She honored her lineage, and proved the world wrong.

How did a creepy-looking “monster” doll drive $670M+ in revenue in 6 months?
Not Barbie. 
Not Beanie Babies.

Labubu.
A gothic, fairy-tale misfit that became one of the most valuable toy IPs on the planet. And behind it?
A Chinese brand using blind-box economics like a hyper-scalable SaaS company.

How did they do it?!
Created by artist Kasing Lung, Labubu started as a niche character in his series The Monsters.
Then came a licensing deal with Pop Mary and the growth engine flipped on.

↳ Phase 1: Distribution Flywheel
- 2,500+ vending machines
- Branded stores across Asia
- Viral pop-ups in London, Tokyo, LA
- Blind boxes priced for impulse (but built for addiction)
This wasn’t retail.
It was high-frequency recurring revenue disguised as toys.

↳ Phase 2: Monetize the FOMO
- TikTok unboxings everywhere.
- “Demon doll” controversies.
- Celebrity bag charms (Lisa, Rihanna, Beckham).
- Drops, lotteries, and timed releases. Scarcity wasn’t an accident.

↳ Phase 3: Scale like SaaS
The numbers are wild:
- $670M revenue in H1 2025 alone
- 66–70% gross margins
- TikTok Shop: $5.5M in June (more than all of 2024)
- Human-sized Labubu auctioned for $150K
- Now drives 35%+ of Pop Mart’s entire business

Their mechanics look more like product strategy than toy design: 
• Blind boxes = retention loop 
• Mega plushies = ARPU booster 
• Limited editions = urgency engine 
• Vertical retail + owned IP = margin moat

Labubu looks like a strange little gremlin. 
But the growth story? 
It’s operator-level discipline wrapped in cultural obsession. 

Most brands try to buy attention. 
This one engineered behavior. 
And monetized it with ruthless precision.

PS: Thinking of getting one for Christmas? 
(Just don’t open the box on TikTok unless you want 2M views…)

“Let’s just add a bonus plan.”

That’s the go-to fix when team morale dips.
Performance stalls.
Or people start quietly quitting.

Often founders jump into designing comp plans…
…before they’ve even clarified where the business is going.
➡️ Goals are changing every 2 months
➡️ Roles are rushed and fuzzy
➡️ Strategy lives in people’s heads, not on paper
➡️ Performance expectations? “Just figure it out.”
And now suddenly… bonuses will fix it?

Employees don’t want more money.
They want DIRECTION.
They want to know:
- What are we building?
- How do I contribute?
- What does “great” look like?

When leadership avoids hard choices, people start making their own:
🟠 The high performers overdeliver and then leave
🔵 The unclear ones drift and underdeliver
⚫ The rest stay and slowly erode performance
So before you build a bonus plan, ask yourself:
❌ Is comp really the problem?
✅ Or is it a lack of clarity at the top?

Start with strategic alignment. 
Then design incentives that reinforce it.
That means:
- Fewer, clearer goals
- Defined company metrics
- Specific individual levers
- A structure that makes success obvious and trackable

Once you’ve done that, THEN you build the bonus plan.

“We did $3M this year. Thinking $6M for next.”
Cool.
How are you getting there?
“Well… gut, mostly.”

Look, I get it.
Budget season brings out the delusional optimist in all of us.
You’re tired.
It’s December.
And doubling revenue just feels like the founderly thing to do.

But let’s be honest:
If your budget depends on miracle deals, or your head of sales becoming a different person…
It’s not a plan. It’s hoping for a miracle.

Here’s what high-performing founders do instead:
- Run capacity math (not hope math)
- Build 3 versions, from “safe bet” to “moonshot”
- Map revenue to actual people, actions, and costs
- Stress-test it before Q1 stress-tests you
This is how your budget becomes an operating system, not an annual ritual of regret.

I break it all down in today’s newsletter → https://lnkd.in/ej3GB8dc 
📩 Go read it. Your future P&L will thank you.

Just because your business is making money doesn’t mean it’s healthy (or valuable).

Profitability is easy to over-celebrate.
Yes, it means your model works.
But it says nothing about whether the business can run without you… or whether anyone would actually pay to own it.

The truth is, profit often hides what enterprise value exposes:
– Pricing decisions built on gut, not data
– Customer concentration no one’s addressed
– No clean financials or operating docs
– Key workflows stuck in your head (or your inbox)
– A team that executes, but doesn’t own

Buyers don’t pay for hustle. They pay for structure.
And the second they sense the business is still founder-dependent or operationally fragile, the multiple tanks, or the deal disappears entirely.

Here’s what they’re really buying:
→ Repeatable revenue
→ Transferable operations
→ Clean books
→ A business that scales without its founder
→ Strategic levers they can pull after acquisition

So if you’re profitable, great, you’re ahead.
But if you want to build something valuable, not just functional, you need to think beyond the P&L.
Start here:
Would I buy my business tomorrow? At full price? As is?
If not, that’s the work.

PS: I broke this down further in today’s newsletter, including what actually raises enterprise value (and what quietly kills it).
👉 Check it out here: https://lnkd.in/ej3GB8dc

“How the hell do I build a bonus plan?”
You whisper it at 11:49 pm.

Then you open ChatGPT.
And start Googling what “profit sharing” even means.

Sound familiar?
Most founders improvise comp strategy, but how you pay people shows what you value.

How you compensate people tells them what you value.
There are 3 common levers:
1. Equity → Long-term belief
2. Profit Sharing → Cultural glue
3. Bonuses → Real-time performance engine

If you’re scaling, focus on bonuses.
They give you control.
They drive behavior now.
And they’re your fastest path to clarity, motivation, and retention.
But only if structured right.

The Winning Formula?
Bonus = 50% Company + 50% Individual
So your team wins when:
- The company grows
- They help make it happen
Company goals: 2–3 simple metrics
Individual goals: Clear, role-specific outcomes
Keep it trackable. Keep it transparent.

How much?
Design total comp with upside:
- Execs: 30–50% bonus
- Sales: 50% variable
- Ops/Product: 10–20%
- Support roles: 5–15%

Bonus cadence?
Always quarterly, never just annual.
Quarterly creates rhythm. It forces goal setting. 
And it builds trust. 
Pay no later than 30 days post-quarter. 
Make it visible. 
Make it trackable. 
Make it worth it.

If you don’t have a bonus structure, you don’t have a compensation problem, you have a focus problem. 
Because when performance isn’t defined, 
Neither is success. 
And that’s when things start to drift.

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