From Banker to Builder: Hands-On CFO Lessons for SaaS, with Jon Gross
Jon Gross, CFO of RepeatMD, describes himself as a "three-level operator" who works at board strategy, project leadership, and ground execution. He came from investment banking and private equity, and learned to translate spreadsheets into real costs by working in sales and marketing. A CFO should enable growth, not block it.
Startups don't need spreadsheet CFOs, they need operators who can think like owners.
John Groth, CFO of RepeatMD, calls himself a three level operator. Someone who moves seamlessly from strategy to execution to the nitty gritty details.
Before finance, he ran ops and served as chief of staff. And that background shows up in how he leads today.
In this episode, we dig into what that mindset looks like in practice. Supporting the CEO, building across industries, and knowing when to get out of the way.
We also talk about why more CFOs should be writing, sharing and building in public. If you're trying to scale fast and operate smarter, this one's for you.
Let's dive in.
Hello and welcome to another episode of the Growth Minded cfo. I am here with my wonderful co host Alex Luisi. I am Lauren Pearl and we are joined today by Jon Gross who is the CFO of RepeatMD.
John, welcome to the show. Can you just start by introducing yourself and tell us a little bit about how you came to the position you are in today?
Yeah, great. Yeah, thanks so much for having me. This is quite the setup you all have. And big fan of the show. So really surreal for me to be sitting in this seat now. So I'm Jon Gross, the CFO over PDMD. Been in the seat for about 18 months now, but the journey, which I know we'll go into here in a little bit, has been very much a winding road. Started my career in investment banking, private equity. So I got to see it on the investor side. Capital markets, IPOs, M&A and all that. Was fortunate enough to work for a private equity fund that was very operationally focused. So transitioned from the investing team there to the operating team. So working a lot with operating partners, chairmans of the board. That was my bridge from investing to operating. And for the last seven years since I've held a variety of different roles across different companies, different stages, different functions. I've held roles in data operations and as a CFO previously as well. So all of that culminates into the skillset and being here at Repeat and
D. Very, very cool. And you mentioned that it's surreal to be a guest on this show. I think as a new show for us, it's surreal to have fans.
Definitely you guys are doing great. You guys are doing great. Keep it up. And very flatter.
I didn't dare say it, but that's great. The exact same when you said it.
Thank you so much. It's so cool to hear people listening. So you've mentioned kind of breaking into the kind of CFO that you are. You've mentioned in the past that you are sort of a three level operator. A three level cfo. Can you get into a little bit like what does that mean and how does that play into what you do at RepeatMD?
Absolutely. So three level operator. I'm a basketball player, basketball fan. That comes from the concept of a three level scorer in basketball. So that means somebody who can score close to the hoop, score in the mid range, in the intermediate and can also score from outside. So I think that that analog and that comparison is very similar to an operator and an executive at a series A company. A growth, a growth stage company. Because there's many times that you have to switch altitudes. Right. So we'll talk about altitudes. You could be having a board level conversation around how to capitalize this business that's you know, high level. We could be leading a project, galvanizing a team, you know, putting in a system, working with product on a new feature, kind of the mid level or working with the team on month end close and then the ground level is doing the work. Maybe I'm building the budget model, maybe it's hands on keyboards work to make sure that work gets done right. So I think having the ability to switch between those three altitudes is incredibly important because in early stage businesses all of those are par for the course on a different day and you have to be able to operate at both and be conscious of what level you're operating at at any given time. So so through that those experiences have been both in terms of different altitudes. Right. In different stages. So in there has been zero to one building from scratch, which we can talk about Series A but also the private equity backed and public companies that you know, show you what good looks like at the end of the day so you can build to there.
Yeah, I was about to ask because that's something that we've had with a couple of guests on the pod here around this kind of carrier moves and transitions from one job to another. And one thing that is always super interesting for us is when you're actually coming from a high altitude, right. When you're working in a bank or working on IPOs and suddenly you are in the altitude of a startup and where you need to be doing basically all the work on your own. I think a lot of guests are interested about these kind of transitions, but do not always dare making it happen.
Yeah.
How did you make that happen?
Well, so I think it was a lot of it was the transition from the investing team to the operating team. I think as a young graduate finance major, investment bank. I actually wanted to be a doctor when I was growing up. So I had aspirations to be an orthopedic surgeon. I was an athlete. I could spot injuries a mile away. I followed banking in terms of the businesses that was interested in. So I worked actually in medical device investment banking. While I couldn't be a doctor, I could at least bank for the companies that, you know, created the innovative products for, for that market. So I think, and that's a pattern in a lot of the job moves that I've made is trying to construct, you know, things that I'm interested in with the experience that I'm trying to get. And a lot of that is in the idea of developing range across different skill sets. Right. So your question specifically about transitioning from banking to private equity to operations. You know, I think a lot of times in investment committee meetings and PE funds, as a young person who hasn't necessarily held an operating role, feel a little bit of the imposter syndrome of like, yes, I can do the analysis, I can do the industry research. I can make informed opinions about a market or a company and do the work. But you're, you know, I frequently sat in those meetings and you're often betting on the jockey as much as you are on the horse. And I was always so impressed with, you know, obviously coming from an industry like private equity where everybody's brilliant. But we were always betting and talking about the management team scorecards, you know, how they're able to drive outcomes and drive value for their portfolio companies. It's always something that was intriguing. I think the. A lot of what. It's funny how professional and personal come together. I was living in Cleveland at the time, doing long distance with my now wife of five years, which is surreal as well, my wife of five years. And part of the deal is that we wouldn't be in Cleveland forever. So love the firm I was at, love the investing work that I was doing. This was 2017 before remote work was very much more normalized. And there was a spot on the operating team as well, which had been something that was interesting to me when I joined the firm and I asked the firm, hey, they were great about this. Hey, love to work on this operating team, work with the portfolio companies on value creation initiatives. But I'd love to work remote and go back home to Miami, where I'm from. And they said, yes, absolutely. As long as you're close to an airport, you can travel, go to the different companies. So that was kind of the half bridge, I think also there's a warm reception to somebody coming in with the mindset of helping the portfolio companies. Oftentimes it's a portfolio company that was at 20 million of revenue. You do three add ons and all of a sudden that $20 million business is $100 million business. CFO is overwhelmed underwater. You know, those are the types of projects that I got exposure to and it made me even more excited to go the next step to be an operator. So that's kind of the transition of like a little bit of experience, a little bit of personal serendipity and you know, and really like you're not going to know if you like it until you try it. And not reading a book, not thinking about it, or having conversations, like a lot. My philosophy, and it'll probably come out in some of the rest of this as well, is like you really have to live it, feel it, and know one way or another whether that's what you want to do when you grow up.
Yeah, well, speaking of live it, feel it, do it. As you kind of step through this process, I'm noticing this very interesting journey going closer to working for the company itself.
Right.
You started kind of in the investor space. You moved to operator kind of as like an external support and then in house in each of those roles, what surprised you? Because you kind of, you, you started out with this outside view of what it's like to run a company and you kind of inched closer. So when you moved from maybe investor to operator on a support level, what surprised you that you thought you knew as an investor that you did. And then when you actually went in house, was there also anything that surprised you that was different about what it meant to be running that finance function in house?
I think a couple things. One, the translation of spreadsheet to reality, how long things take. Right. How a number on a spreadsheet compared to the cost of implementing that, the people cost. I think a lot of it has to do with people. I think each of the roles that I've had when trying to develop range, but also developing empathy. I think one of the roles that I've had was in a chief of staff, VP of operations capacity. And I was doing marketing, I was doing sales, you know, I was doing the drip marketing campaign, getting people on the phone, you know, selling them on our mvp.
Wow.
Being said yes to this is not
chief of staff, by the way, but
being said no to working with our developers and I think the really important thing is like, hey, if I'm just living in the spreadsheet, which again, you know, it is what it is. You're not managing a team when you're in some of those roles. You know, you have to have empathy for the people that you're working with because a lot of the decisions are cross functional. It's not just, hey, improve your margins by, you know, 3%. It's like, do you actually know what that takes? That's taking out vendors that are costing money. That's a six month transition, that's a renegotiation of a contract. There's so much more to it. And then managing, you know, who are the people that touch that system, there's a lot more interconnectedness that I think, you know, perhaps gets overlooked. Where we're talking about, we talk about best in class metrics, but the ability to deliver those is very much like, you know, admirable and how hard it is.
Yeah, it reminds me of we've had conversations with multiple CFOs talking about how important it is to kind of walk around the office to sit in with the sales team and how that builds empathy for kind of your peers and who you're building these reports for. It's funny because it's like the ultimate empathy comes from when you're a chief of staff and you actually have to be the sales department for a little bit of time.
I'll never forget this. I had an advisor of ours and he was fantastic. He said this quote that will always stick with me. And I recognize the irony of what I'm about to say because I'm on a CFO podcast is it's a lot harder to make the money than it is to count the money and look like this is me as a CFO that stuck with me, so on and so forth. So whenever I'm working with sales teams, CS teams, I'm always putting my customer hat on. Again, empathy. Having been in the seat and understanding
what that really feels like, I think that's a common theme that we've seen with the growth minded CFO actually around understanding the other teams, being a business partner in a way. And that's why we're so interested about those transitions from one job to another. Because this is usually what is helping you. Being more than the number cruncher or the person that is just coming with just very simple, you know, like basic comments on numbers. And I smiled when you were talking about, you know, the, the difference between what is in the numbers and what is happening in reality because as a founder, myself as well, you know, we talk to investors and, and even when numbers are good, you know, people are just like, typically. The one thing that I really, that was really funny for me was like this idea of like doing more with less, which is typically like, you know, improving your margin and, and you know, and the team is working really, really hard to get to the point where we actually doing much more with less. And everyone's like, yep, that's cool. You know, this is great from a financial perspective, but they don't really understand at an investor and high altitude level that hey, there's a lot of efforts and sometimes people are, you know, can really, really stretch thin to get to the point where we can do more with, with less. And, and I think having this, this sensibility and understanding where it's coming from and having been in those roles is super, super helpful and definitely something that other finance leaders should consider if they have the opportunity.
Well, and to your question earlier about making the transition, I think my advice would be for everyone to step into whether it's an operating role in finance because that's the logical transition because that's what you know how to do, that's what your skill set is, but leaning into and not being afraid of other functions. When I think that empathy and that, you know, that exposure and that range, I think like a lot of the experiences is developing range makes you a much better operator wherever you decide to sit. At the end of the day, nothing, nothing is forever. I think everybody wants to figure out what they want to do when they grow up, but you don't really know that until you try a bunch of things and see what you like and see what you don't.
Yeah.
Along those lines, it sounds like especially you've kind of alluded to during your time, especially as a chief of staff, it sounds like you held many hats. And I think a lot of us startup CFOs get put in this position where we're the CFO, but maybe like 50% of the time because we're also maybe head of HR, we're also maybe running the marketing operations, whatever we have to do. In your experience, what have been the advantages of sort of having that multi hat, multifunction view? And are there any drawbacks to having that breadth of the role?
Yeah, I think one of the things that I have to work on is making sure that I'm appropriately spending time and bandwidth on what matters. Right. And being able to identify what matters and how much time to spend on Finance. In that example, how much time do you spend in the different areas? Because, you know, I think what you see from my experience as well is I'm perpetually curious. I'm interested in different roles, seeing things from different vantage points, both sides of the table, investor side of the table, operator side of the table, 0 to 1 challenges, series A challenges, which are all different top to bottom. I would say the things to look out for are making sure that you're still delivering on your core responsibilities. Right. And don't let curiosity take you away. But also, you know, I'm going to say blissful ignorance. There's actually, to be honest, I can't think of many because I think it just makes you look at different problems with different mindsets. It's not just a. And again, I'm not diminishing anything here of like dollars and cents. Dollars and cents always matter. But on the people side, to your point, there's a human element to it. Right. On the product side, there's a user experience component to it. And I think when I work with our product and engineering teams on new features, that helps me no less speak the language, understand also, you know, enough to be dangerous. You know enough to be able to know if something's taking longer than it should or how hard something is and know if people are pulling your leg.
Right.
I think that's. And I don't know if I can curse on here as I went with pulling your legs, but a lot of that is helpful context to bring into a situation.
Yeah. Incredibly powerful. I know in my own journey, I completely resonate with all the advantages that you've described. I think that's really true. The only downside I can think of from my own is. And it's less of a downside, more of just an extra challenge of if you're wearing so many hats as the company grows, then sort of finding your place in the organization can be one of those challenges. If you are a CFO who's also the head of some other department and you are really good at that, it can be challenging to step back and say, nope, we're going to hire someone for that role. As we grow, I'm going to leave that. That baby of mine and I'm just going to own the finance function. That clarity.
I think also one dimension that job seekers undervalue is the stage of company on that point as well. It's like some people are serial series A operators, which is an interesting stage for me where you're on something, you have product market fit and you're in the scale and the build phase. So you get a little bit of both 0 to 1 infinite respect for folks that start from, you know, start from a very early stage that has its own set of challenges and its own risk profile as well. So to your point is like, hey, well as the business grows there is more specialization, there are more lanes and you have to ask yourself, hey, is that something that I'm interested in doing or do I want to go to another company at the previous stage and run it back and do it again?
Yep, yep.
Yeah, it's. We talked a lot, we talked as well about this on the, on the podcast. But I think it's something that's interesting about how job seekers and candidates don't usually see just the kind of like box of a job, like finance person or you know, like and just dismiss a little bit the stage of the company where obviously we know from being operators that it's going to be a very different job, whether it's a zero to one by the simple virtue that maybe the company might not exist six months down the line or a year down the line if you are at a very early stage.
And I think so. I've spoken to a number of folks looking to make the transition from investing. I think that's where folks get stuck, is looking for perfect when perfect doesn't exist. And I think you'll see that in my experience as well. It's like look like, you know, there was enough and we can talk about each of the roles and the why behind each of those transitions, but people get stuck on looking for perfect. And to your point, many folks have not dealt with that level of existential risk that the business may not be here in a year or two years, but that's the market, that's the business. That's what you look at loss ratios for VC funds. Everybody is eyes wide open into trying to make something big and figuring it out along the way. So it's a mindset shift, especially even for me coming from private equity. Even private equity looks at the world different than venture capital. Right. Like your risk tolerance, your loss ratios, everything cascades down from, you know, from who you're, who's on your cap table
to what brought you that comfort with taking that risk initially. Moving from the investment side to the startup side. Where did you find that bravery?
Yeah, I was, I think I was just looking for something different.
Okay.
I don't think there's anything, you know, I was in. It was the only world that I knew was investment Banking, private equity. I think moving to the operating side, I mentioned before the respect for the management teams that were able to deliver on their numbers, manage their teams, manage private equity firm as well, board meetings and everything like that. I was like, hey, I want to give that a shot. And my first startup experience I worked for a bit for one of the portfolio companies whose project I worked on. I put in a BI suite which has helped me even now we just put in netsuite which is very exciting. But that prepared me very much for this project. The other one being Mile High Labs company in the CBD and cannabis space. New market, brand new World Series. A company very much part of it was my wife and I wanted to live in Colorado and enter a new chapter of our lives. Right. So there's multiple different facets to it and you're going to learn something whether you learn what you expected to learn or you're going to learn things that you didn't expect to learn along the way. I've seen many movies in my career. Some movies you'd want to watch again, some movies you don't. But I think a lot of that is you have to see the movie to then the next time that comes around to be in the movie, recognize you're in the movie, take a step back, plan out the action and then actually have to take the action.
And that's great to hear that because that's a common trait we've seen from growth minded CFOs on the podcast. People are willing to take some risks and being at ease with the risks that are embedded into where they're going. Right. If you're going into an early stage company, maybe regardless of what you do, maybe there's no product market fit or anything. And guess what, that's fine, we'll find another job, we'll move on. We've learned a lot. And I think this is also this idea of people used to be a little bit stuck into a well need. You have to be in a very secure spot which is definitely at the end of the day and at the end of your career. If you think about the numbers of movies you've watched and things, I think it's something that is just not as good as what you're describing.
Well, and it's also, I think it's an interesting relationship with the concept of failure. Yeah, right. People are afraid of failure. It's why they don't want to make that move. It's what the little voice in the back of their head saying, hey, I don't want to make this move because something bad could happen. Yeah, there's many like there's impossible to predict that. And you know, I find that most people who have made the switch have deep down wanted to make the switch. They needed a nice kick to get there and many don't look back.
Yeah, that's pretty cool.
Still to come, on this episode in
Private Equity, we talked a lot about professionalizing the business. I think there's a balance of like, yes, there's professionalizing the business where it makes sense, but not at the expense of changing what has made the business special in the first place.
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Do you think that that tolerance for risk taking also translates into how you make decisions and in the CFO role? So you've talked about risk tolerance in your career decisions, but as CFOs, we're also always encouraged to be kind of the steady, stay the course less kind of risky and now with so many innovations in technology and AI, there's a lot of pressure to innovate and try new things. I know you just onboarded netsuite. I'm sure you had a couple of options to choose from there. So thinking through your strategy as a cfo, how do you think about taking risks and kind of your responsibility within the team?
I think it depends on the business, it depends on the priorities. And again, to go back to the capital stack, it depends on the incentives of the people on your cap table.
Right.
The incentive for a PE backed company may be give me 10% growth for the next five years. Great. A VC fund may say, hey, I need to return the fund, so I need you to grow 200% year over year for me to make that happen. A lot of it is, it depends. I think the other thing is, you know, is it a, you know, part of my job is to bring out the best in the folks that I work with. I think another, I don't want to say controversial take, but like I think G and A, what makes a business special is the go to market motion and the product. G and A is an enablement function. We're here to make sure we're getting the most out of the rest of the business, under no illusions about that. So a lot of it is bringing the mindset of what are we really good at? In our case now, our founder, master marketer, master seller, how do I enable that and not restrict that? Because that's why we're all here. We're all making bets implicitly on someone or something to be successful. So how do we amplify that? Right. That's. I view that as my job or how do we do that in a responsible way where, you know, again, that manifests itself when we're building our budget. Where I know from a creativity standpoint, you may wake up one day and say, hey, I want to run this campaign. If I say, hey, well, that's not in the budget, it would create friction. That's a problem because the business has gotten to where it is because of that creativity and because of that amplification. So there's maybe a creativity budget that's in our marketing budget that we put in there as a cushion because knowing him, that will come up inevitably. And how that manifests itself is maybe we hire a few fewer people, maybe it's fewer fixed costs and that gets allocated appropriately to the founder. So that's one example that I live in now. But that's applicable across the way. It's not necessarily One size fits all in that sense. And that's the fun. It's that it's not a. You're not going to turn into a, call it a playbook monster, right? That. So like, hey, one size fits all. You have obviously have to understand the concepts, the frameworks, but every, every situation is a bit different. You have to adapt.
I love hearing your answer. There's so much like investor mindset baked into your answer as a CFO around you're thinking about one even you're taking cues from the stakeholders of like, well, what are they optimizing for? What kind of ROI are we doing that's going to dictate their risk? Which feels obvious if you're an investor, but is not necessarily obvious to other folks who've been in other positions. And then also thinking, I love this idea of prioritizing your own actions as a CFO of, well, I just need to not block the most important part of the business. What takes away friction, what's gets out of the way of this go to market function. That's a really cool guiding light.
I think also in private equity, we talked a lot about professionalizing the business. I think there's a balance of like, yes, there's professionalizing the business where it makes sense, but not at the expense of changing what has made the business special in the first place. And I think particularly with early stage companies, a lot of times the investors are betting on the founder. I'm here to help along the journey to make sure the outcome is as successful as possible. But like understanding that and being eyes wide open, you know, you end up being more at peace with making those decisions and, and putting the focus where it needs to be.
Yeah, and I really like the point you made as well on, you know, understanding where the business is good at, what made that business so special. Because this is usually something that is not really from the finance teams, but actually it's very important that you can actually unlock and I think we've seen that as well with a lot of the guests on this idea that you are here to identify and unlock where resources should be put. And I think that's really great. And I like what you said around we're not going to reinvent the wheel on how we do our DNA or kind of like these things. It's kind of table stakes. What we want is basically what is not table stakes, which makes our business unique. And I think to that point, something that I found quite interesting, you touched upon this earlier, but, but I'd like you to come Back to this is how do you work with, as a CFO? How do you work with the CEOs and the founders to actually understand what is unique in this business and helping them on the side.
So I think a lot of this comes down to onboarding and being willing to put in the work and the time. Right. I think when we talk about folks looking to make the transition, whether it's DEFP and a or the CFO or really any role at this level, it's so important to invest the time and make sure that you're leaning in to learn the business as fast as possible. Both from the quantitative sense, right? Rebuild the model, get really good at what the drivers are, but also the interpersonal sense of spending time together, absorbing, observing and forming, you know, forming your opinions. But you know, I guess like strong opinions held like that, you can always change your mind, right? So it's, it's important to really dig in in the early days and make sure you form those opinions. Because look, if I didn't have any takes on anything, that's part of what I get paid for, right? You have to take and make tough calls, which is I guess to go back to your question before things to look out for as you step into this role and what the differences are on the investor side. I have to make tough calls every day. I have to live with those calls. There's plenty of people that can sit from the armchair and throw stones like, hey, well, I could have thought about the decisions differently. That's just the hump that you have to get over as part of, you know, as part of, you know, being in these roles.
That is super, super interesting. I like how you, how you redefine like the role of the CFO in the business and in the organization and how you play this really like moving forward type of role in the organization rather than holding back the organization. And I think that's, that's a common trait we've seen from, from a lot of growth minded CFOs on the podcast.
It's hard, right? It's not easy. Like it's, you know, it's when it's like, hey, can I. The common question is, hey, can we hire this person? Or like how fast can we go? And it's more my job to figure out how. If I say no again, I want to say yes to everything. My job is to make sure that we're being responsible and focusing more on the how.
Yeah, we've heard a lot the sound bite of being a CFO go rather than A cfo? No. And I'm reminded of this when we talk about this issue, but it really, I think it's a theme that's coming back around being a growth minded cfo. And you used the word. I think you used the word friction or just. I think that's a really interesting concept to think about as a cfo. Cause so often the classic role is you are that person that says no. You are kind of the gatekeeper, the person who has kind of the rule books, the budget, which says what you can't do. And in a company that's moving fast, it's actually not about that at all. It's about enabling the direction that the company wants to go and finding a path.
Absolutely. And I think I'll go a level deeper for that as like unnecessary friction. Right. Friction is healthy. I think healthy teams have friction, have conflict. We'll debate the important things. But unnecessary friction would be like arguing over $100 of sales commission. Doesn't matter in the scheme of things. Doesn't matter. Creates unnecessary friction with your stakeholders. I want salespeople to make a lot of money. Hope my sales team's watching. Right. Like, I want you to make a lot of money. I just want that to be aligned with the business. Sales team does well when the business does well and not the other way around.
Right.
That's more the, the structural responsibilities. But if we're arguing over small things that don't really matter at the end of the day for the sake of it, that's where I think you have to just be aware of, like, hey, am I creating unnecessary friction or am I creating the right amount of friction?
Yeah, it's really cool.
It is a really good concept.
John, I think one thing that we discussed by preparing this episode is the fact that you were saying that you were trying to get out of your comfort zone, which is something that we with Lauren find really interesting with guests that we have on the podcast because this is usually the sign of people that are kind of like moving forward and people that we want to interview on this podcast. So can you describe a little bit more about what is getting outside of your comfort zone at the moment, what you doing and also why you started doing this?
Yeah, I think it's a couple of things and I think a lot of it has to do with growth. Right. And making that commitment to yourself that you want to grow. I think if you're not uncomfortable, you're not growing. I think a couple of inspirations that even the business I'm at now a Couple things. One, I mentioned our founder, Superpower, in this business is Superpower is very much marketing. I also reflect on something that an old mentor of mine told me when I was 25 years old working at the PE fund. Hey, marketing is the hardest part of any business, right? And I think a lot of CFOs or finance professionals, myself included, you know, don't really think about that regularly. We're more of the behind the scenes, not sitting out in front. But I think, you know, to get to, you know, it actually started as more of a personal development experiment of, you know, developing more or better one to many communication, whether you're talking in a boardroom or you're presenting it on all hands to the business, formulating your ideas in a written form in a concise way is helpful. That's one. The other one is, again, you're going to get judgment wherever you look. Sitting in a seat like this, no matter how you slice it, people will disagree with your opinions. And I think for me, wanting to get over the hump of it's not that bad, right? I think for everyone who's thinking about it, it's like it's always built up worse in your brain than it actually is and a lot of great connections come out of it. It's why I'm here, right? That's why I got to meet you too, is, you know, putting the voice out there, you know, and being comfortable sharing.
What has changed since you've been kind of speaking more publicly, writing more publicly? What have you learned? What have you seen?
I've learned that it's, it's something that you have to ingrain into your day to day. And I think for busy folks, everybody has got a lot going on in their lives, whether it's kids and work and everything like that. Carving out the time to do it consistently, I found to be the most successful. And even now it goes through ebbs and flows. There's periods for work where don't put pressure on yourself to say, hey, I have to do this twice a week. If it's 0 times 1 week and twice one week, that's fine. Just one step forward in front of the other. Not setting those arbitrary. There's best practices. You talk to many people, it's like, hey, well, you have to do three times a week for the algorithm. Don't worry about that. One foot in front of the other. Rip the band aid off and just go do it.
I love that I resonate with the consistency. I know for myself in becoming more public, someone told me that actually for writing a newsletter. I do a newsletter. They said that actually if you're just starting out, daily is easier than weekly. And I thought this was insane, but it's so much easier building that habit.
It is. But many people, it's like, hey, well, it's the same thing. You go to the gym, right? Do I want to go if I'm going from not working out to going to the gym seven days a week, That's a hard, that's a lot harder than, hey, once here and there, maybe you have a notes file somewhere on your Google Drive that has all of your ideas. I had many 60% done ideas on this brain dump. But you have to go. Maybe you go to a coffee shop for an hour on a Sunday and crank one or two out and you get better at it. You get better at it. The more reps you do. And it's the same thing is true with the roles. The more reps you do at whatever it is that you're doing, you're going to get better. You just have to be willing to put in the work and invest the time.
You know what I find super insightful with this interview, John, is that you dare like, I think it's something that is really cool, whether coming from a kind of like a more traditional investment banking background and then moving to an operator role or kind of like challenging yourself and doing more stuff. I think it's, it's something that is again, something we've seen over and over with growth mind and CFOs who actually dare to get out of their comfort zone. And I think it's so inspiring because we want to, we want to work with people like this, actually. We want to, we want to work with people that bring new ideas, that have a different perspective. You know, it's even, it's something that when you're talking about the gym and everything, it's something that I often tell the team is to take some time off and of course not always, but this disconnection and ability to take a step back on where you are, what do you want to do, is also something that brings fresh perspective on who you are as a professional. I think it's something that is super, super helpful. Thanks for sharing this.
Absolutely. Well, and I'll say you'll never know when inspiration will strike because some of the posts I was on vacation internationally with my wife, 2 o' clock in the morning, something comes out and I had a reaction to it. So I was always up until 3:00 clock on vacation. 3:00am vacation, cranking it out. And you never know when inspiration will strike. You just have to let it take you and seize the opportunity.
Tip from John. Bring your notebook.
This is really something that happened to me as well with the business. Like the probably the best pivotal moment or defining ideas have always came out of somehow nowhere. But it's not nowhere. It's a moment where you actually in a different context, in a different environment. And yes, you're right, you should always have the notebook so that you just write it down before it goes.
You'll be shocked at how many unread emails I have to myself. Written drafts of ideas or asana tasks or whatever it is to make sure that the idea translates to down from your brain into someplace you can reference it later if you want.
Yeah, yeah. A note on how to harness inspiration when it strikes. I think that is a wonderful way too.
That could be a whole separate segment.
Yeah. A new podcast next. How to harness inspiration as a cfo.
We'll be there. Well, for this podcast actually this was actually a really great conversation and thank you so much John for being with us today. It was really pleasure and, and really I think an insightful conversation for any aspiring finance leader. So thanks for sharing all of that.
Thank you so much for having me.
Of course, it was great. We were super, super happy to have John on the show today. If you liked that episode, please like the show on your favorite platform, share it with your friends, share it with other finance leaders and please, if you know someone that with whom we could have such a great conversation, same as John, please feel free to share it with us. We've learned a lot from past guests, future guests, all the friends in the network. So that's been really a great experience for us and we're also very happy to have some fan of the podcast.
Now I would say keep doing what you're doing. It's great. No notes. And thank you again.
This has been perfect. We were really having a great time with Lauren, just meeting with great people and hopefully the audience is also benefiting from it. So thank you so much, John again and we'll see you later on next episode of the Growth Minded cfo.
See you next time.
Thanks.
Bye everyone.
Bye.
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