Arman Eshraghi, CEO and Founder of Qrvey, hosts a podcast, “SaaS Scaled.” Our latest episode featured Jason Kruger, President & Founder at Signature Analytics, a provider of expert level accounting and business advisory solutions to small and middle-market businesses throughout Southern California and beyond. You can watch or listen to the podcast here and we’ve covered some highlights of their discussion below.
What accounting mistakes do SaaS founders commonly make?
“A common mistake is that business owners are living day by day. And so, what’s that forward-looking planning look like?
“When I look at a business and if their goal is to grow and eventually have some level of an exit, we want to always focus on maximizing enterprise value at all times. Think not only about where we are today, but where we’ll be in the future. I often see that accounting is an afterthought or the metrics of the business and how they evaluate success are afterthoughts because they’re just trying to grow and retain the client base.
And those are big metrics, but if we can identify the metrics up front, and really understand cash flows upfront, meaning:
- How much cash do you have now and how long will that last?
- Do you have a cash burn rate or is cash depleting over time?
- If so, we need to start thinking about that now and how we’re going to manage that.
- Do you need a capital infusion?
- Do you need to bring in additional investors?
- Can you get financing in some way, or will your revenue growth be able to manage through that?
So, cash flow management is critical. Understanding that in advance so we can plan for the future is critical.”
How do you balance CEO optimism with necessary pragmatism?
“We want to understand and evaluate risk, but we also want to have an entrepreneurial mindset like our client too. We don’t want to come in and say, ‘Well, here are all the risky things and you can’t do anything,’ because that’s the opposite of the mindset of an entrepreneur.
“We come from the mindset of, here we are today and here’s where we want to get. Okay, how are we going to accomplish that? Let’s make sure we have a roadmap that we can see through the financials based on what’s happening with the business, we can see growth and success. And so, on our team, we have CFO level support and business advisory support to be that sounding board for our CEO and entrepreneur clients, so that they can leverage expertise that they don’t have.
“What’s important for any business is also that scalability. We want the business owner to be focused on what they do best and what they know best. A lot of business owners and CEOs are caught up in spending time in accounting and finance, operations, or HR where that’s not the best use of their time. And they know it, but they have nobody else to support them in that, and so financial leadership is important. We want to provide financial leadership to take that off the plate of the CEO so they can focus on what they do best. Their expertise really is in achieving the goals of the business.
Arman Eshraghi is the CEO and founder of Qrvey, the leading embedded analytics solution for SaaS companies. With over 25 years of experience in data analytics and software development, Arman has a deep passion for empowering businesses to unlock the full potential of their data.
His extensive expertise in data architecture, machine learning, and cloud computing has been instrumental in shaping Qrvey’s innovative approach to embedded analytics. As the driving force behind Qrvey, Arman is committed to revolutionizing the way SaaS companies deliver data-driven experiences to their customers. With a keen understanding of the unique challenges faced by SaaS businesses, he has led the development of a platform that seamlessly integrates advanced analytics capabilities into software applications, enabling companies to provide valuable insights and drive growth.
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