u/Asim-AI

Finance jobs in a startup - most indemand niche (First Finance hire)

I have worked in various consulting jobs previously with Big4 and then as an accountant/controller roles. Accounting got very boring very quickly since it was repetitive, closing the books, ticking off the same old month end check list each month, grinding to get the numbers right, working through the night and it ended up “just being doing your job”. I then switched to being a Finance business partner and then to FPA. Creating financial models and going through budget vs actual with all department heads.

But ever since I started working in Finance positions with high growth startups, it started getting excited. Especially as a first finance hire.

I would always wake up to a different challenge, a problem I have not encountered before and ended up solving it.

It was no more about a regular finance job, now I am an accountant, FPA, finance business partner, HR business partner and a business consultant. Sometimes even a driver, company secretary, ordering lunch and organizing team events. I felt like being empowered, felt like a business owner. I was counting every money spent and thinking of ROI consistently. Remodeling and forecasting, counting money spent towards the growth of business.

Being a first finance hire was initially frightening. But thank god I took that risk a few years ago and since then have setup finance departments for several startups from 0-1. Only to realize that this niche has a very high demand while it’s very exciting vs regular accounting job which are pretty boring and competitive.

All you need to do different is, learn a few skills and the rest you build as you go. Here are a few tips for all fellow accountants.

1. Understand the business and growth KPIs. Write all these down very clearly and focus on top 3 for the first six months.

2. Setup Chart of Accounts that reflect the industry you are in. Get ChatGPT or Claude to do and then make a few fixes to it to make it reflect your business. Takes 3-4 hours.

3. Create a cash burn report inexcel. A simpe and real one based your expenses such as payroll, rent, admin and any other asset purchases. Count the money coming in if there is revenue, investment or loans. This tells you your runway and when you have to raise cash next or get a loan.

4. Create a financial model. You can do this even if you have not done this before but you understand all three statements. Get Claude in excel to create it for you by feeding the CoA in it. Ask it to show all formulas and give it a little business context and what your business goals are. If you do not know all assumptions, Claude will suggest and you start your learning journey here. Make sure to prompt it to include the headcount as well. Take the current headcount by department by titles and the months you forecast the hires. Headcount is one of most critical OPEX since this drains the money the quickest, so be conservative and realistic.

5. Create departments in the accounting software. And then create department wise budget feeding the numbers from your model. Make sure to review BvA with department heads each month and hold them accountable for money they have spent. It's less about policing but about creating accountability and ROI mindset.

6. Setup operations, get the best software for accounting, AP and AR. Get a software that is simple to feed in and spits out reports in excel very easily. Bonus, if it creates simple and useful dashboards. You can’t complicate processes in a startup. Selecting a good software is critical, it takes time to implement. If you get a great software, it makes the life so much easier. In my experience many CFOs end up deciding on softwares based on listening to sellers pitch who have never done accounting work before and end up being stuck with those softwares.

Any agreements you sign with third party vendors in intial stages should be for 1 year max. The vendors will tempt you to sign 3 years agreements but a startup changes so much in first 2 years that you needs keep shifting.

Once you get these right, your auditors will sign off on the reports and you gain investor's and board's trust.

7. Build quarterly reports for board meetings, make sure to present the KPIs and spent in the format they like to see. Get Claude to do it in PPT by mentioning your industry and work on those suggestions.

8. Make sure at the end of each month that the CP% is growing and you have cash to run another 6 months.

With AI everything you never did before has become easier to do! Best of luck!

I have worked in various consulting jobs previously with Big4 and then as an accountant/controller roles. Accounting got very boring very quickly since it was repetitive, closing the books, ticking off the same old month end check list each month, grinding to get the numbers right, working through the night and it ended up “just being doing your job”. I then switched to being a Finance business partner and then to FPA. Creating financial models and going through budget vs actual with all department heads.

But ever since I started working in Finance positions with high growth startups, it started getting excited. Especially as a first finance hire.

I would always wake up to a different challenge, a problem I have not encountered before and ended up solving it.

It was no more about a regular finance job, now I am an accountant, FPA, finance business partner, HR business partner and a business consultant. Sometimes even a driver, company secretary, ordering lunch and organizing team events. I felt like being empowered, felt like a business owner. I was counting every money spent and thinking of ROI consistently. Remodeling and forecasting, counting money spent towards the growth of business.

Being a first finance hire was initially frightening. But thank god I took that risk a few years ago and since then have setup finance departments for several startups from 0-1. Only to realize that this niche has a very high demand while it’s very exciting vs regular accounting job which are pretty boring and competitive.

All you need to do different is, learn a few skills and the rest you build as you go. Here are a few tips for all fellow accountants.

1. Understand the business and growth KPIs. Write all these down very clearly and focus on top 3 for the first six months.

2. Setup Chart of Accounts that reflect the industry you are in. Get ChatGPT or Claude to do and then make a few fixes to it to make it reflect your business. Takes 3-4 hours.

3. Create a cash burn report inexcel. A simpe and real one based your expenses such as payroll, rent, admin and any other asset purchases. Count the money coming in if there is revenue, investment or loans. This tells you your runway and when you have to raise cash next or get a loan.

4. Create a financial model. You can do this even if you have not done this before but you understand all three statements. Get Claude in excel to create it for you by feeding the CoA in it. Ask it to show all formulas and give it a little business context and what your business goals are. If you do not know all assumptions, Claude will suggest and you start your learning journey here. Make sure to prompt it to include the headcount as well. Take the current headcount by department by titles and the months you forecast the hires. Headcount is one of most critical OPEX since this drains the money the quickest, so be conservative and realistic.

5. Create departments in the accounting software. And then create department wise budget feeding the numbers from your model. Make sure to review BvA with department heads each month and hold them accountable for money they have spent. It's less about policing but about creating accountability and ROI mindset.

6. Setup operations, get the best software for accounting, AP and AR. Get a software that is simple to feed in and spits out reports in excel very easily. Bonus, if it creates simple and useful dashboards. You can’t complicate processes in a startup. Selecting a good software is critical, it takes time to implement. If you get a great software, it makes the life so much easier. In my experience many CFOs end up deciding on softwares based on listening to sellers pitch who have never done accounting work before and end up being stuck with those softwares.

Any agreements you sign with third party vendors in intial stages should be for 1 year max. The vendors will tempt you to sign 3 years agreements but a startup changes so much in first 2 years that you needs keep shifting.

Once you get these right, your auditors will sign off on the reports and you gain investor's and board's trust.

7. Build quarterly reports for board meetings, make sure to present the KPIs and spent in the format they like to see. Get Claude to do it in PPT by mentioning your industry and work on those suggestions.

8. Make sure at the end of each month that the CP% is growing and you have cash to run another 6 months.

With AI everything you never did before has become easier to do! Best of luck!