Efficiently Managing Company Finances | Industry Alchemist Podcast

Transcript

Matt Brower (00:01)

You’re listening to the industry alchemist podcast.

The definition of alchemy is a seemingly magical process of transformation or creation. This podcast exists to hear the stories of entrepreneurs, business owners and leaders doing just that in their industry. We hear about the journey of the brave souls carving a new path, moving their industry and our lives forward in a seemingly magical way. This episode is brought to you by officechief.com. Office Chief exists to make moving your office easily and painless. Moving an office

can be a big hassle. On top of running your company, you’re thrown into having to figure out what to do. Hire space planners, furniture companies, movers, IT consultants, the list goes on. It only takes two minutes to create a profile, and Office Chief gives you a step-by-step action plan and connects you with the top vendors in your market. Moving your office? Log on to OfficeChief.com and make it easy.

I’m your host Matt Brower, co-founder and managing broker of Column Commercial Partners, helping companies save money on their real estate. I’m also founder and CEO of OfficeChief.com, an online resource for businesses moving their office or updating their space.

Hey guys, welcome to the industry alchemist podcast. I’m your host, Matt Brower. Today’s guest is a finance professional that does a lot of work with early stage Colorado companies. After graduating from CSU with an accounting degree, he served as CFO for a few companies over the years until he began his fractional CFO career in 2011. Now running Ascent CFO Solutions, his team helps many Colorado companies with financial and growth strategies.

He chose to become a CFO for hire because he loves entrepreneurship, working closely with teams who are building high growth businesses and helping new and established companies reach their potential. Thank you for being here on the show, Dan DeGoglie.

Dan DeGolier (01:58)

Matt, thanks a ton for having me. This is really fun. I’m excited to talk to you today.

Matt Brower (02:02)

Absolutely. I’m trying to remember, you and I have known each other for probably three, four years now. Trying to remember who introduced us originally, but we were sitting here on site in your office up in Boulder and first met you in the coffee shop downstairs, Oso.

Dan DeGolier (02:19)

We were at Ozo downstairs when we first met. Yeah, I can’t remember exactly who introduced us either, but…

Matt Brower (02:24)

was a while ago, but then we’ve gotten to know each other quite well over the years. Both gotten involved in EO, Entrepreneurs’ Organization. yeah, let’s jump into that, actually. EO has been ⁓ just a massive positive impact in my business and my entrepreneurial journey. What has been your experience since you’ve been involved now for about three years?

Dan DeGolier (02:49)

About three years, yeah, no, it’s been great. So EO is a global organization, but there’s regional events, there’s chapter events. But for me, the magic happens at the forum. So a forum is made up of eight or 10 people in a room who get together once a month and really just talk about business, personal, and family issues, and try to go deep, try to go 5%.

Matt Brower (03:09)

Wow, it’s, ⁓ yeah, so it’s all other, everyone else in the room is a business owner just like you.

Dan DeGolier (03:15)

Everyone’s a business owner who’s took to qualify.

Matt Brower (03:18)

It’s kind of like group therapy for us entrepreneurs. Much needed. ⁓

Dan DeGolier (03:21)

It is a lot.

No, it is. We joke about that, that it tends to be very much of a group therapy type ⁓ feel to it. We go get vulnerable and share things. it’s been really valuable to my business.

Matt Brower (03:36)

That’s great. Were you doing anything like that prior to EO?

Dan DeGolier (03:40)

I wasn’t. I wasn’t. I specifically sought out something that would give me that sort of ⁓ support system that you don’t really have as the sole owner of the business. I don’t really have an executive team. Right. Yeah.

Matt Brower (03:56)

Yeah, I would say a very common theme among people that we have on this show, we talk about the need for mindfulness and the need for being authentic and vulnerable with your peers and everything. Was that hard for you to sink into having not really done that prior to?

Dan DeGolier (04:15)

It wasn’t hard actually. think I just I found a great forum that I was able to really connect with pretty quickly and so I was I think I’ve been really seeking that that group that I could get vulnerable with and could could really go deeper with.

Matt Brower (04:30)

Yeah, I think it’s incredible. It’s like how you do anything is how you do everything. So whether you ⁓ think it does or not, some issue you’re having at home is definitely going to impact your business or vice versa. that’s a great place to kind of work all that out, get it out of your head, get advice from your peers.

Dan DeGolier (04:48)

Indeed.

Indeed, yeah, it’s a great experience so far.

Matt Brower (04:55)

So I wanted to talk, I know that you have provided mentoring and I know that you serve on some boards for some Colorado companies, some incubators. I wanted to learn more about what you’re doing. You work with a lot of earlier stage companies in Colorado, a lot of the entrepreneurs here. ⁓ Tell us a little bit about ⁓ kind of that journey, ⁓ if you can, who you’re kind of working with in terms of mentorship and that sort of thing.

Dan DeGolier (05:22)

Yeah.

Maybe I’ll start by giving you little bit of ⁓ background of how I came to where it’s a starting ascent. ⁓ I was with a early stage after working with a number of ⁓ high growth companies. ⁓ I had taken a role as a pretty early stage company ⁓ in Boulder and identified that they needed help with the needed CFO help. They needed help building a model.

building a forecast, ⁓ raising around a venture capital. But they were pretty early stage, and they really couldn’t afford a full-time CFO. So that was sort of my light bulb moment to say, wouldn’t it be interesting to support more than one company? What if I was CFO and could be at a strategic level for two or three or four different companies at a time? And so that was my light bulb moment in 2008. Then in 2011, I started doing exactly that. I started working with multiple companies as a fractional CFO. ⁓

I was under the brand of DeGoglie consulting at the time, eventually renamed the company to Ascent CFO Solutions in 2015. ⁓ But the sort of impetus for the whole thing was that we can provide ⁓ all those things that you would want from a full-time CFO, ⁓ the thing, ⁓ the financial modeling, the cashflow forecasts, the accounting automation, but on a

on a buy by the bite type model, right? companies are getting the strategic support they need from a CFO just for the hours that they need that strategic side. When it comes to closing the books, they get a controller at that rate if it’s the transaction stuff with senior accountants. So our team is made up of 20 people. Half of us are CFOs, the rest are controllers, senior accountants, and accounting managers.

Matt Brower (07:11)

Okay. Yeah, so it’s like a perfect fit ⁓ for is there is there a what’s the catalyst for ⁓ needing to hire somebody like you? Is there a revenue threshold? Is there a

Dan DeGolier (07:24)

We companies

going through a transformation. maybe ⁓ they’re about to raise around, they’ve just raised around, they’re going through revenue growth. So we work with venture-backed companies, angel-backed companies, and bootstrap companies that are growing through cash flows.

Matt Brower (07:39)

Okay, great. Yeah, and so you’re that makes so much sense. You know, I’m thinking of my company, I might have a need for, you know, three hours a week, if that for that level of financial kind of strategy and planning, but

Dan DeGolier (07:54)

Our best engagements is where our CFOs really engage as part of the executive team. So there may be a day a week or two days a week, but they really step in ⁓ engaged as part of the management team. They’re in the executive strategic sessions. They’re in the board meetings. And they are the right hand to the CEO. They’re just not full time. so the advantage is, one thing that I’ve found as I’ve given them lot of thought to where we’re going and how we differentiate is,

that the caliber of teammate you can get on a fractional basis can sometimes be higher than you can get on a full-time basis. You get somebody, a CFO in the prime of their career who’s doing some great work, ⁓ and they may not want to work for just one, from one company ⁓ there where they have to go down and process payroll and close the books in order to keep themselves busy for a 40-hour week. They kind of have to do everything. And the company can only afford really one headcount in some cases for early stage companies.

Whereas the CFO gets the opportunity to work with two or three or four five different companies, maybe one company, it’s two days a week and ⁓ it’s a growing SaaS company. Then maybe for a day a week they’re working with a real estate developer. Maybe half a day a week they’re working with an online retailer. So they get a lot of exposure to different things as well and they get to be very strategic in their role. so I can attract some incredibly talented CFOs to my team.

Matt Brower (09:23)

Yeah, what happens if one ⁓ of your clients, you place one of your CFOs with one of your clients, they love them so much and they help them grow so much they want to bring them out full time.

Dan DeGolier (09:35)

just poking the soft part right now, Yeah, so that hadn’t happened for a long time until last year. A couple CFOs got taken away by clients. ⁓ At first, was like, was bothered. was, you know, well, I’m not thrilled about it, but it was, my first reaction was ⁓ frustration, but then I realized it kind of validates the model. We’ve got really talented CFOs. They’ve performed great work for clients, helped clients get to that.

Get to that next level and now they need full time and they’re pointing to that to that person saying I really want want this person So it’s it’s tough because now we have to transition their other clients to other CFOs ⁓ Which is you know the biggest issue but at same time? It’s it’s good for the you know if it’s what the CFO wants and it’s a great opportunity for them and the company I’m not gonna get in the way and prohibit that from happening right I’d like to get compensated for a little bit, but right

Matt Brower (10:28)

Yeah, that makes sense. And hey, maybe they need some ⁓ controller work still that the outsource did.

Dan DeGolier (10:34)

That’s been the case in some situations, yeah.

Matt Brower (10:37)

That’s great. That’s great. do you, aside from obviously just being involved in helping other entrepreneurs, what drives you to getting involved in mentoring and ⁓ some of the incubators around town here just being in that?

Dan DeGolier (10:54)

Yeah, I mean I love entrepreneurship, right? I I started my career in public accounting doing audit and tax, which was great for a while and it was a good education. But I wanted to be involved in building things. you know, mentoring over at Galvanize or doing some work with one of the accelerators is really interesting because I get to, you know, be part of that, you know, that small passionate team that’s building something cool and something disruptive. And so it really allows me to…

and that entrepreneurial part of my bloodstream, I guess. ⁓

Matt Brower (11:29)

deep.

⁓

Dan DeGolier (11:39)

I mean, a number. probably won’t name names here. ⁓ yeah, there’s been a few that have just been ⁓ going through, ⁓ preparing for &A. That’s been one area that we’ve really enjoyed over the years is worked with several clients have exited. So we’ve been able to be part of that process, helping them with diligence, helping them with negotiating terms with the potential acquirers, ⁓ working with the investment bankers if they’ve hired an investment bank.

So that’s been a very fulfilling ⁓ part what we’ve done. And some of it is just that strategic, those strategic meetings when you’re looking at pricing strategies and go to market strategies and ways to ⁓ really scale.

Matt Brower (12:23)

Yeah. So I’m going to ask a little bit of a self-serving question here because I am not ⁓ numbers, I’m not drawn to finance and accounting and things like that. I very much more enjoy business strategy and marketing and sales, that side of business. Are there any themes that you see with your clients, particularly smaller earlier stage companies that are

you know, doing things wrong. Like what’s the, what are the kind of themes you see when you come in and you look at what’s happening? What are people missing? What are companies just not thinking about enough of that sort of thing?

Dan DeGolier (13:04)

Well, we’ve definitely inherited plenty of situations where a client has neglected their books for a while. They need to have the books cleaned up. And I know some people get frustrated by that and say, well, how can you just neglect that? And I don’t look at it the same way. I look at it as, when you’re an early stage company, you want to build a product that people are going to buy and then get those people to buy it until you’ve established that you’ve built something that people are actually going to buy.

Matt Brower (13:17)

I how, but no.

Dan DeGolier (13:34)

it’s OK to ignore some of the other administrative stuff for a while. But then you’ll pay a little bit more when it comes time to clean it up. And you have to go back and maybe amend the tax return and restate your historical revenue recognition. But until you’ve really proven something, I ⁓ don’t fault people for not prioritizing spending money on finance and accounting in those early days.

Matt Brower (13:58)

Okay, so yes, it’s just more of a, you know, what I’m hearing is I’m not the only one. It’s just more of a, it’s okay to ignore it to a certain extent for now.

Dan DeGolier (14:04)

No

I mean, I’m not going to encourage people to do that, but I don’t ⁓ fault people necessarily if they’re prioritizing, ⁓ again, that very early stage where they’re growing something from scratch. Building something disruptive.

Matt Brower (14:23)

I’ll sleep.

That’s great. ⁓ what else should your customers really ask of you, get from you in terms of what you’re providing your team?

Dan DeGolier (14:44)

Yeah. So I’ll kind of recap a little bit on the model being so different. the fact that you can get a high caliber person who is being your right hand strategic CFO who is helping you really understand your cash flows, helping you build different scenarios of growth.

rolling, three year rolling forecast financial model who can run some scenarios around ⁓ some ROI’s on some marketing initiatives. Somebody, so you can have that really talented person ⁓ working with them 12, 16 hours a week. ⁓ And then, so you’re not paying the 200k plus salary for that person, you’re paying the benefits ⁓ there. And they also can stay above the fray around

the politics of the organization in some cases. know, can’t imagine any companies have any politics or anything, but you know, this person can come in, they can just do their job, really help with that strategic piece of the business. And then ⁓ if there’s closing of the books and you don’t have an accounting staff, then you can have ⁓ a two day a week controller who is overseeing maybe your full time accountant. So we can really customize and tailor the team.

based on each client’s needs. ⁓ And so it becomes a very cost effective strategy ⁓ rather than having to ⁓ have a full time employee in each of these different roles in those stages. And then we have plenty of situations though where clients, where it evolves over time, right? They start out where they’re working with maybe it’s a day a week bookkeeper and a half day a week CFO. And eventually they get to a point where they need a controller and then they hire their own full time bookkeeper. We’re not a recruiting firm by any sense, but we’ll help them vet candidates and help them.

hire full-time people. And our role becomes more and more just the strategic CFO as it evolves over time.

Matt Brower (16:49)

You know, and just speak really quick to the politics or whatever. It might not be politics at a small company, but it might be just headbutting, know, disagreements. And I can see where there’s a lot of value in your, somebody on your team that’s a ⁓ little bit of an outsider looking into a situation.

Dan DeGolier (17:08)

Analytically, yeah. Take an analytical view, look at the facts, present things, not have the same level of emotional investment that the founders would.

Matt Brower (17:19)

Right, exactly. Over some strategy or disagreement or whatever. Yeah, expense reports. What’s that office space? TPS reports? Yeah. That’s great. And before I forget, how can our listeners reach out to you if they want to learn more, if they think they’re maybe ready for kind of the services that you’re talking about here? Sure. What’s the best way for them to find you?

Dan DeGolier (17:23)

Spence reports.

So our website’s ascentcfo.com, ⁓ A-S-C-E-N-T-C-F-O.com. my email’s dan at ascentcfo.com.

Matt Brower (17:55)

Easy enough. let’s jump to kind of more personal stuff. You’re married, you’re a father, how many kids do have? Three daughters.

Dan DeGolier (18:04)

I have three daughters.

are rapidly moving towards empty nest hood. ⁓ I’ve got two daughters in college and a third one is a freshman at Boulder High. My first one’s at Oberlin College in Ohio and my second daughter’s at Pratt Institute in New York and Brooklyn.

Matt Brower (18:14)

Okay, which college are you first?

Okay, wow, spread out. That’s cool. What do you, I’m sitting here in this conference room looking out at the Flatirons at Boulder, amazing view. What do you do for fun outside of work up here?

Dan DeGolier (18:39)

⁓ So I like to mountain bike. I like to ski, hike. So I guess the standard Colorado answers, right?

Matt Brower (18:44)

Yeah, those mountains off. Yeah.

Dan DeGolier (18:47)

I love to travel. ⁓ About four years ago, ⁓ my three daughters and I all got scuba certified. So that has been one of our ⁓ sort of ⁓ activities as we’ve started to plan vacations. We’ve tried to do some scuba type destinations. that’s been a lot of fun. So our first one was in Cuba.

Matt Brower (19:09)

Where have those been?

Dan DeGolier (19:12)

⁓ Earlier I showed you a painting my daughter did ⁓ on that trip when we were in Santiago de Cuba all over the island. ⁓ So that was our first dive trip. And then we went to ⁓ Belize and did the Blue Hole and all that. That was spectacular. And then last year we did Cozumel. In between we did Croatia. ⁓ And we thought about doing some diving in the Adriatic, but ⁓ it seemed like it was more trouble than it was worth really.

Matt Brower (19:38)

Yeah, that’s right. told me about, I went on my birthday trip last summer, told me about Croatia and Hvar Island. That was the best part of our trip. Thanks again for that too.

Dan DeGolier (19:46)

Yeah.

Yeah,

it’s an amazing place. very welcome. Yeah, I you had a good time.

Matt Brower (19:53)

I

wish that I would have spent an entire week there instead of two nights.

Dan DeGolier (19:59)

you can always go back again.

Matt Brower (20:00)

Yeah, this is true. That’s great. Great. Let’s transition out of the rapid fire portion. And this is another chance for us just to get to know you on a personal level a little deeper. So ⁓ tell us about any ⁓ favorite books that you’ve read.

Dan DeGolier (20:19)

Gosh. ⁓ So I kind of alternate between books for fun and books for work. I guess some business books that I’ve really found to be interesting. Obviously, Jim Collins, Good to Great is kind of a classic. That’s one that I read a number of years ago that I thought was pretty impactful. I really like Blue Ocean Strategy. ⁓ That’s ⁓ all about disruption and how companies ⁓

in and completely disrupt markets. So I think that’s one I want to go back and reread again. It’s been great.

Matt Brower (20:54)

Yeah, I’ve heard of that one. I need to check that out.

Dan DeGolier (20:56)

Yeah.

And then, of course, traction, the EOS kind of guidebook. We’re a relatively vertical firm, so we don’t necessarily have a management team to really do an EOS type implementation at our company. But quite a few companies have done that that we’ve worked with. And it’s really big within the Entrepreneurship Organization as well. EOS is a big thing there. So traction is definitely one of

one of my go-to books as well.

Matt Brower (21:26)

Okay. EOS standing for Entrepreneurs Operating System. Like a methodology for running, operating a business. And then Traction is the book that basically sums up what that means or gives you the structure to follow.

Dan DeGolier (21:30)

Correct. Correct.

Exactly.

Right, the book is kind of the Bible around EOS. Yeah, thank you.

Matt Brower (21:44)

I can see how you could enjoy that. I’ve read about the first half of it and again as I said I don’t really enjoy that structure is not my my foresight or my strong suit. So no I’m obviously it’s it’s great info and it’s how businesses scale so I try my best to kind of ⁓ keep that stuff implemented in our stuff too.

Dan DeGolier (21:52)

Yeah.

I’m by no means an expert, but there’s a lot of great implementers in Colorado. It seems like ⁓ it’s really becoming a standard by which a lot of companies operate.

Matt Brower (22:20)

Yeah, no, absolutely, especially in EO.

Dan DeGolier (22:23)

So Matt, one other book that I ⁓ found was really useful was Simon Sinek’s Start With Why. I don’t know if you’ve come across that or not.

Matt Brower (22:32)

Absolutely,

and I’ve seen a lot of his videos. I love that guy.

Dan DeGolier (22:35)

So a

few years ago when I was starting to realize that we were going through a transformation and I was no longer just a fractional CFO, but I was actually ⁓ running a professional services firm. I found this transformational aspect. ⁓ I met with a coach, with an executive coach, and the first homework she gave me was to watch some of Simon’s videos and read Start With Why. And the other homework I had was to go talk to my people, some of my top CFOs at the time, and ask them why they choose

to work for me, to work for a CFO, they could earn 200k or more base salary as a CFO, go to the same spot, go to the same desk every day, have regular, at the time we didn’t have benefits, we now have health insurance benefits in 401k, but at the time we didn’t have that, people were 1099s. And I asked my CFOs in the…

Responses were the same. was themes that came across with everybody, which was flexibility and variety is what the CFOs really, really liked. The fact that they could work on a SaaS company one day and a manufacturing company the next and then an online retailer the next was something that they found was really interesting. And then people who want a flexible schedule. Maybe they’ve got a young family at home or things like that. So that was really telling. And then this morning, actually before you came in to our offices here,

I had our all hands team meeting, which we do once a month. And I asked kind of that same question, like, besides flexibility and variety, there anything else ⁓ that you, ⁓ as a CFO or a controller or a county manager or a senior accountant within Ascent, is there anything else besides flexibility and variety? And one of my CFOs made a comment that it’s, they also feel like they can fast track their professional growth because they’re working with not just one company on a certain set of issues with one company. They’re working with two or three or four different companies.

and they get to face different kinds of challenges. And then they can come back to our team and bounce an issue around on our Slack channel or something. So anybody tried to integrate X with Y? What have people tried to find to solve this issue? And so that’s been kind of fun collaborative process that people… That’s our Y.

Matt Brower (24:47)

Yeah. To

kind of offer that ⁓ as a lifestyle, really, to your team.

Dan DeGolier (24:56)

Yeah, it’s sort of the gig economy, not exactly, but it’s sort of on the periphery of the evolving gig economy.

Matt Brower (25:04)

Yeah, and for those that don’t know, Simon Sinek’s ⁓ what that book is about. And I haven’t read the book. I’ve seen there’s a YouTube video of I think it’s a TED Talk that he gave. it’s people don’t buy what you do. They buy why you do it. And it’s so powerful. And he kind of goes into that in detail. And we’ve done actually a lot of work in our company for Column Commercial about that.

Dan DeGolier (25:30)

Excellent. Yeah, that’s good stuff.

Matt Brower (25:32)

How about any of your favorite technologies that you use daily or week?

Dan DeGolier (25:36)

Gosh, so I have to say that my iPhone, I love it and I hate it, right? I mean, it’s such a distraction for everybody. It pulls you away from real face-to-face conversations and things. it is my go-to device, right? It’s got pretty much anything you need to access. It’s in that stupid little device in your pocket. love it and hate it.

Matt Brower (26:00)

Yeah, everything.

Fascinating, yeah. I’m an Android user, but I won’t hold any grudges. What about any, what’s your biggest fear?

Dan DeGolier (26:09)

Sounds good.

Biggest fear? I mean, I guess I don’t try to live through fear, first of all. But I would say that this current climate we’re in with the, we’ve had so many companies have only seen a bull market. So many companies have just seen this high, this 10 years worth of bull market. Now we’re starting to see these coronavirus fears and things like that. So I think.

We are in somewhat of a state of irrational exuberance, kind of in the dot com days. I can compare to that a bit. We’re not maybe quite as irresponsible in our decision making, but we’re still in a situation where people just haven’t seen what happens in a down market. from a business perspective, guess my ⁓ fear I have is that ⁓ what’s going to happen if the economy does take pretty big drop? What’s going to happen with all these early stage?

companies and high growth companies that have not had to face those sorts of challenges before. So we’re trying to ⁓ think about what does that look like and with our background and experience, ⁓ helping companies think about how they would navigate those waters.

Matt Brower (27:33)

Yeah, kind of hedge for that. Yeah, that’s great. That’s great. What are you most proud of about yourself or your company or your family?

Dan DeGolier (27:45)

Yeah, would say my family and my company. I’ve got three awesome daughters and a wonderful wife. they’re really very much, they’re very powerful women in all cases. And in their confidence. And so I’m extremely proud of the family. And I’m really proud of the team we’ve built at Ascent. We’ve really got, I always say I can only grow.

the company as quickly as I can find eight players to join the team. And we’ve just got some incredibly talented people who are really delighting clients. And the whole company has grown through word of mouth. I’ve never done any real marketing whatsoever. It’s all been referral based from guys like you, ⁓ And so I’m really, really proud that we’re doing some good things for clients.

Matt Brower (28:31)

Incredible, yeah.

Very cool, very cool. And then last question, what is your superpower? What are you great at? ⁓

Dan DeGolier (28:44)

tier.

I wasn’t prepared for that one, Superpower. What am I great at? I guess being able to see the big picture and maybe the underlying issues around a team, being able to come in, evaluate all of the aspects of what’s going on in a company, and maybe being able to try to in a relatively reasonable amount of time, figure out what some of the

the core cause of an issue is.

Matt Brower (29:14)

Wow, that’s cool. That’s a great talent to have. Well, this was a fun conversation. I really enjoyed learning more about Ascent CFO solutions. Again, your website, ascentcfo.com. And your email is dan at ascentcfo.com. Pretty easy. Thanks for the conversation. Thanks for telling more of your story. And yeah, we’ll keep the referrals coming.

Dan DeGolier (29:27)

That’s correct, yep.

⁓

Thanks a ton, Matt. It’s been really, really fun, and I really appreciate the invitation to ⁓ chat here. I’ve listened to a lot of the podcasts on your show, and I’m happy to be in good company. Cool. Good work. Thanks for what you’re doing for the community.

Matt Brower (29:57)

Appreciate that.