Caroline Moon leads financial operations at Andreessen Horowitz (a16z). She is advising early-stage startup founders on how to recruit and select outsourced finance leaders.
“You should absolutely assess them with the same lens you would use for a full-time hire, because the fact is they're going to be a key part of the team, only just for one to two days a week.”
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More from Caroline Moon
Insight
Caroline Moon: Startups should build out finance early to increase success
“Finance now tends to be the last area that gets built out, but I would argue if you want to increase your chances of success, it should actually be one of the first.”
Caroline MoonJun 11, 2018▶ 0:49Finance as Strategy: When and How Startups Should Build a Finance Function
Insight
Moon: A bad VP of sales hire costs 18–24 months of runway
“To give you some more context, a VP of sales generally takes on average six to 12 months to ramp, and if along the way you realize you made the wrong hire, it takes three to six months to find a new VP of sales, and then this new VP of sales will take six to 1…”
Caroline MoonJun 11, 2018▶ 12:32Finance as Strategy: When and How Startups Should Build a Finance Function
What-if
Moon: Strategic finance could have saved $65M startup from shutdown
“A strong finance team would have understood that there were bad unit economics in play and help the company course correct before it was too late. And before they had to shut down completely.”
Caroline MoonJun 11, 2018▶ 1:46Finance as Strategy: When and How Startups Should Build a Finance Function
Insight
Moon: Strategic finance teams manage startup runway and KPIs, not just payroll
“At the core, a great finance team isn't about just doing the basics, and let's call those things payroll and tracking expenses and keeping track of the cash. They also do much more strategic things, like helping define and track the right KPIs to measure the b…”
Caroline MoonJun 11, 2018▶ 1:56Finance as Strategy: When and How Startups Should Build a Finance Function
Insight
A complex startup requires a finance team to manage its operating plan
“In the same way that complex products can really only be built with a strong product team and well-defined product roadmap, To build something complex, like an entire company needs a finance team to manage the company roadmap, also known as an operating plan.”
Caroline MoonJun 11, 2018▶ 4:06Finance as Strategy: When and How Startups Should Build a Finance Function
Insight
Caroline Moon defines accounting as a manual ETL process for financial data
“Accounting is just a word that we use to talk about a manual ETL process of translating the money that flowed in and out of your company, whether it's revenue, contracts you signed, invoices you've paid for or have to pay, or payroll, and into a mineable finan…”
Caroline MoonJun 11, 2018▶ 6:00Finance as Strategy: When and How Startups Should Build a Finance Function
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