IAM2460 – Founder and CEO Helps Companies Unlock Business Growth with Fractional CFO Services

Dan DeGolier

00:00 - 00:26

Really at the core of it, I would say if there was one part that's kind of in the center of the target of what we do, it tends to be the financial modeling and forecasting, right? It's saying, okay, look at the different scenarios, look at all the inputs, understand what your pipeline looks like and what your conversion rates are and what revenue can you really capture. And if you're gonna be going after new initiatives and new revenue streams and new geographies, whatever that looks like based upon your business. Are you ready to hear

Intro

00:27 - 00:52

business stories and learn effective ways to build relationships, generate sales, and level up your business from awesome CEOs, entrepreneurs, and founders without listening to a long, long, long interview? If so, you've come to the right place. Grush values your time and is ready to share with you the valuable info you're in search of. This is the IMCEO podcast.

Gresham Harkless

00:53 - 01:00

Hello, hello, hello. This is Gresh from the IMCEO podcast, and I have an awesome guest on the show today. I have Dan DeGaulier. Dan, excited to have you on the show.

Dan DeGolier

01:00 - 01:02

Great to be here. Thanks for having me, Gresh.

Gresham Harkless

01:02 - 01:35

Yes. I'm super excited to have you on. Dan is doing so many phenomenal things, so I can't wait to kind of dive in. But of course, before we do that, I want to read a little bit more about Dan, so you can hear about some of those awesome things. And Dan is the founder and CEO of Ascent CFO Solutions, a fractional CFO firm providing a part-time, flexible way for growing companies to engage with an experienced chief financial officer. As a seasoned financial leader, Dan has operated as a CPA with a global accounting firm, a full-time CFO with multiple private companies, and a fractional CFO with companies in all stages across diverse industries.

Gresham Harkless

01:35 - 02:12

Dan is a two-time winner of the Colorado Titan 100 Leadership Award and has grown Ascent CFO Solutions to ranking of 2,813 on their prestigious Inc. 5,000 list of America's fastest growing companies. He is passionate about helping entrepreneurs upward to help them understand their finances and cash flows and obtain the capital they need to grow. And I was listening to some of the podcast episodes before and all the awesome things that Dan is doing. He has a great story about founding his company that I'm sure we're gonna dive a little bit more into. He has over 30 years of experience, which means that you know he definitely knows everything that he's talking about.

Gresham Harkless

02:12 - 02:36

He serves on the board of the I Have a Dream Foundation of Boulder County, which supports under-resourced youth. And he also is an angel investor in early stage companies and has contributed to the entrepreneur ecosystem in Colorado. And one of the really cool things that I love to kind of talk about is like outside of work, he enjoys mountain biking, skiing, hiking, spending time with his wife and three kids. So Dan, are you ready to speak to the IMCO community? Absolutely.

Dan DeGolier

02:36 - 02:37

Thanks. Thanks

Gresham Harkless

02:37 - 02:44

again. So, um, to kind of kick everything off, what I wanted to do was rewind the clock a little bit, hear a little bit more on how you got started, what I call your CEO story.

Dan DeGolier

02:44 - 03:18

Yeah. Awesome. Thanks so much. Um, gosh, so, you know, I started my accounting kind of in a traditional way, my, my career in kind of a traditional way, starting as a CPA with a, with a CPA firm doing audit and tax work, but I was very focused on entrepreneurship. I really loved, I love the idea of disruption and entrepreneurship and people who were changing the way that things have been done and changing the status quo. And so I was pretty early on focused on working with entrepreneurs and high growth companies, I guess, is the way I would look at it.

Dan DeGolier

03:20 - 04:06

And, you know, even back in the, I'll date myself a little bit, but even back in the 90s, you know, the software was an area that a lot of companies were innovating. So I really put my energy towards technology companies, really. And so I was, you know, CFO of various and other financial leadership roles at software companies and technology companies and really enjoyed that aspect of innovation and disruption and growth. And so I had taken a role, I had left a pretty substantial publicly traded Australian company, a software enterprise software company, and taken a role with an early stage company raising around its first round of venture capital.

Dan DeGolier

04:07 - 04:49

And as soon as I joined there, I realized, wow, they really didn't need somebody in a full-time role and they certainly couldn't afford a full-time CFO. So I sort of, You know, help them raise some venture debt. But that was my lightbulb moment. it would be really interesting to support multiple companies as a CFO. And so I started on that path, on that journey of becoming what was, at the time, the term fractional really wasn't utilized much. It was debated whether or not that term made sense, and it wasn't very common. Now, of course, it's kind of ubiquitous, the term fractional.

Dan DeGolier

04:49 - 05:33

But I was part-time CFO for multiple technology companies for a few years. Kind of doing it on my own and then back in 2015, 2016 timeframe, it became clear that this was a pretty interesting model. Other people were interested in doing this, and there was a lot of companies interested in utilizing fractional data. CFOs and accountants and controllers. And so I said, why not? Let's see if I can build a business out of this. So kind of went from being a fractional CFO to leading a professional services team back in 2016 or so. And now we're 40 total employees and growing.

Dan DeGolier

05:34 - 05:45

We're serving over 90 companies across all kinds of industries. And really, you know, we help companies with growth is at the bottom. The next is the way to look at that.

Gresham Harkless

05:46 - 06:13

Nice. Well, I appreciate you so much in sharing that, especially like how, um, you know, it sounds like early on, you really were, um, I guess, drawn to that, that innovation that the trailblazing kind of, I guess, mentality that was happening in technology, but she sounds like you were able to kind of transfer that to, to what you're doing as well, to, you know, doing fractional before fractional was kind of in vogue and the thing to do kind of to be able to understand that, Hey, there is a problem and to be able to come up with that innovation and solution to be able to serve the clients you want to work with.

Dan DeGolier

06:14 - 06:16

Yeah, thank you. Yeah, that's that's that's accurate.

Gresham Harkless

06:17 - 06:27

So I would love to draw that a little bit more. I know you touched on a little bit more on like, you know, the number of clients and the type of services you provide. I would love to hear a little bit more on what that looks like and how you're making that impact for the clients you work with.

Dan DeGolier

06:27 - 07:07

Yeah. Yeah. So, you know, companies of all kind of all sizes need needs financial leadership, right? They need to have somebody managing their cash flow, whether you're whether you're a venture backed or angel backed or just, you know, self-funded by by growing with your own capital. All companies need to have really strong visibility into cash flow and into the future and make sure that they sleep well at night by understanding what their cash forecast looks like. And then, you know, we help companies with fundraising, whether it's equity or debt. We help companies with exit planning.

Dan DeGolier

07:07 - 07:44

So eventually, You might want to decide it's time to sell your business or somehow transition. So we help companies with exit planning as well. But really at the core of it, I would say if there was one part that's kind of in the center of the target of what we do, it tends to be the financial modeling and forecasting, right? It's saying, okay, look at the different scenarios, look at all the inputs, understand what your pipeline looks like and what your conversion rates are and what revenue can you really capture? And if you're gonna be going after new initiatives and new revenue streams and new geographies, whatever that looks like based upon your business.

Dan DeGolier

07:46 - 08:15

Let's put together a forecast that allows you to see those different scenarios. And then what does it cost to deliver? What do you need from a sales and marketing standpoint? What do you need from, if it's a technology company, what do you need from an engineering standpoint? If you're a manufacturing company or e-commerce company, what are your costs gonna be? What are your cost of goods? How does that, what the supply chain? We look across the entire business. And then of course, there's the other components of running a business, the general administrative or GNA. GNA components.

Dan DeGolier

08:15 - 09:02

So let's look across all that. Let's understand what those headcount costs are, what those facility costs are. You know, look across the entire business. You kind of start with having good accounting, right? So you can't really forecast future financials if you don't have accurate historical financials. So we've got controllers and accounting managers, senior accountants on the team who can, you know, make sure that their books are in great order, their accordance with GAAP, generally accepted accounting principles. They're on a cruel basis. You've got really clear starting point as far as what you've done historically. And then as you move forward, how do you forecast what that looks like over the next six, 12, 18, five years over a period of time?

Dan DeGolier

09:02 - 09:35

We usually forecast about three years out. We find it's good for a lot of companies that five years is kind of a long time. So creating that really robust forecast that allows you to run different scenarios on it, downside and upside versions of it, that's really one of the critical components that we've got a ton of experience with. you know, 14, 40 total people, 36 of the team is our billable consultants and 14 of them are CFOs. The rest, like I said, are financial analysts and controllers and other accounting roles.

Gresham Harkless

09:36 - 09:46

Nice. That's huge to be able to do that. And so what would you consider to be a little bit more of what I like to call your secret sauce? It could be for yourself individually, the business or a combination of both, but what do you feel kind of sets you apart at McSweeney?

Dan DeGolier

09:47 - 10:33

So as a professional services firm, all that really matters is the people. So we go through a very rigorous process of recruiting and identifying and vetting candidates, whether they're CFOs or whether they're senior accountants or anywhere in between. because it's not just hiring people who are good CFOs or have been experienced CFOs or accounting, but people who are excellent communicators that understand the idea of serving multiple clients, right? Because any given CFO or accountant is gonna have somewhere between four and seven clients most likely. And so each one's gonna have their own style their own deadlines, their own communication methods.

Dan DeGolier

10:33 - 11:17

And so it's finding people who are excellent communicators and are good at understanding their own boundaries and what they can commit to. And we don't ever want to commit to deadlines that we can't hit. So it's all about under-promising and over-delivering. And so we've run through a pretty significant process to make sure that they are really people who aren't just good at what they do, but are good at, really good at communicating and letting, you know, so you can sit down with the client, you can talk to them about the pros and cons, what's going on, the strengths and the SWOT analysis, the strengths and weaknesses and opportunities and threats that they have in their business, and be able to communicate that at all levels of the organization.

Gresham Harkless

11:17 - 11:29

Yeah, that's such a huge thing. So I wanted to switch gears a little bit, and I wanted to ask you for what I call a CEO hack. So this could be like an Apple book or even a habit that you have. What's something you lean on that makes you more effective and efficient?

Dan DeGolier

11:31 - 12:09

Yeah, I think, you know, there's a few books that come back to time and time again, when entrepreneurs or others are interested in learning about, you know, growth and stuff like that. And so one of them is Blue Ocean Strategy, which is a really, you know, fundamental book that talks about how, you know, how you disrupt the way the status quo. Again, disruption is a thing that I've brought up a couple of times already. I think that's a good one. And then we're big fans of EOS and the book traction. And so I know quite a few implementers.

Dan DeGolier

12:09 - 13:08

We run kind of a light version of EOS here at Ascent, but we're not a full EOS company because our management structure is somewhat flat. I think that that is very helpful for a lot of companies understanding that discipline around running the entrepreneur operating system, EOS. And of course, no short list of books would be complete without Jim Collins, Good to Great. That's just a classic read. And I think there's some good fundamental components of that, that entrepreneurs would find valuable. And then I guess my own personal sort of hack that I've used outside of books is I've just always had a phenomenal EA for almost six years now, executive assistant, who As we've scaled, I've been able to rely more and more on her to help me manage my day and manage my priorities and have somebody who I can delegate to.

Dan DeGolier

13:08 - 13:12

It's almost nearly a chief of staff type level.

Gresham Harkless

13:13 - 13:26

Yeah, that ends up being so powerful. So what would you consider to be a little bit more of what I like to call a CEO nugget? So that's kind of like a word of wisdom or piece of advice. I like to say it might be something you would tell your favorite client, or if you hopped into a time machine, you might tell your younger business self.

Dan DeGolier

13:27 - 14:02

You know, be open, be open to change, be open to alternative viewpoints. Don't just hire people around you who think exactly the same way you do. work with, you know, bring on people who have a different life experience, different work experience, different philosophies. And so I think collaboration with diverse backgrounds is really, really valuable instead of living inside your own bubble all the time.

Gresham Harkless

14:03 - 14:08

Yeah, it's such a huge thing. And so I wanted to ask you now one of my absolute favorite questions, which is the definition of

Dan DeGolier

14:08 - 14:09

what it

Gresham Harkless

14:09 - 14:14

means to be a CEO. And our goal is to have different quote unquote CEOs on the show. So Dan, what does being a CEO mean to you?

Dan DeGolier

14:14 - 15:01

You know, I think to some extent leading by example would be maybe one way to look at that. Be collaborative. realize you can't do this alone. So finding great people to, to support your deficiencies, I guess, you know, find, you know, if there's, if you're good at, if you're good at sales, for example, find somebody who's good at, you know, another component of operations. If you're good at, if you're good at, at sort of fundraising and, and, and or technology than find somebody who's good at sales. You know, there's there's a lot of for for a company that's scaling, you need different different people in different seats.

Dan DeGolier

15:01 - 15:10

So, you know, maybe I'll go back to good to great for a second here as well as under, you know, finding the finding the right people and put them in the right seats. Perfect. Perfect. Well,

Gresham Harkless

15:10 - 15:23

I absolutely appreciate that. Of course, I appreciate your time even more. So what I wanted to do now was pass you the mic, so to speak. just to see if there's anything additional that you can let our readers and listeners know, and of course, how best people can get a view, find out about all the awesome things you and your team are working on.

Dan DeGolier

15:24 - 16:13

Yeah, great. Well, thank you for that. It's been a pleasure. Yeah, we're pretty active on LinkedIn. So we try to put some quality content out there. It's all written by humans and not AI. And so Ascent CFO Solutions on LinkedIn, follow us there. You can reach out to us. There's a contact us page on our website. Our website is ascent, C-F-O dot com, A-S-C-E-N-T. There was probably the two best ways to reach out to us, our LinkedIn and the web. And yeah, we love supporting clients of all sizes. We love, you know, in particular clients that are on a growth path and who are you know, to reference some of this podcast that are, that are, you know, like

Gresham Harkless

16:14 - 16:22

to be coached. Absolutely. Well, I truly appreciate that, Dan. Of course, to make it even easier, we're going to have the links and information that's shown us as well, too. I hope you have a phenomenal rest of the day. Thanks for the time.

Intro

16:23 - 16:23

Thank

Gresham Harkless

16:23 - 16:24

you

Intro

16:24 - 16:53

for listening to the IMCEO podcast powered by CB Nation and Blue 16 Media. Tune in next time and visit us at imceo.co. IMCEO is not just a phrase, it's a community. Check out the latest and greatest apps, books, and habits to level up your business at ceohacks.co. This has been the IMCEO podcast with Gresham Harkless Jr. Thank you for listening.