The Go-To-Market Strategy for FP&A Pros to Drive Growth using Operational Metrics with Rohit Divate

What's the biggest opportunity for FP and A moving forward as builder or profession? What would you say?

I think AI is the biggest thing. AI systems are generating synthetic data. So as they generate more data, these models get smarter and they need to work less hard to do the work.

They need to do. What does great FP and A look like according to you?

Specifically, in my world of SaaS and smaller companies, what great FPNA is. Meet Rohit Devati, a powerhouse in strategic finance for high growth SaaS with over 15 years of experience. He's helped raise more than $500 million, scaled revenues from $50 million to over $500 million and grown teams from 20 to 3000 plus at companies like Gusto and Optimize Lead.

FPA has become much more strategic. At the end of the day, FP&A needs to be commercially focused. You need to be a business partner. You gotta be strategic. Just looking at the numbers aren't enough. How do you really try to work with and influence the business and being that partner they need in those early days?

It's tough in the early days because I don't think a lot of metrics really make sense. If you look at unit economics, the rule of 40 is like a great metric, but it doesn't work at an early stage business because you're just investing so much and you have no profits.

Early on when it's hard to know what your metrics are going to be, it's going to take some time. Just because you're not sure where you're going doesn't mean you still can't measure where you're at.

Yeah, the measurement is key here.

If I was to ask you what's the number one technical skill that someone in FP and A should master?

I like rules of three, so I'll give you three. So number one is now let's turn.

That over to soft skill skills. What would be your answer?

Yeah, so.

And now a brief message from our title sponsor. In finance, being accurate isn't enough. You need to be strategic. The new FPA Professional certification from CFI teaches you how to forecast with confidence. Build the models that drive action and present insights that shape decisions. Build the skills, own the strategy. Learn more@corporate financeinstitute.com hello everyone. Welcome to FP&A tomorrow where we delve into the world of financial planning and analysis, examining its current state and future prospects. I'm your host, Paul Barnhurst, AKA the FPA Guy, and I'll be guiding you through the evolving landscape of FP and A. Each week we're joined by thought leaders, industry experts and practitioners who share their insights and experiences, helping us navigate today's complexities and tomorrow's uncertainties. Whether you're a seasoned professional or just starting your FP and a journey, this show has something for everyone. So this week I'm thrilled to have on the show Rohit De Vate. Rohit, welcome to the show.

Thanks, Paul. Happy to be here. Big fan. I feel like I've made it being on this podcast.

Well, I appreciate that. I can relate to that. The first person I ever interviewed on a podcast was a Microsoft MVP. And his stuff I'd seen on LinkedIn all the time and totally admired him. And I made the comment to him, I go, I feel like I'm a fanboy right now. And his comment was, no, you just belong. We're all the same. You're just part of the team. And that's what I tell people. Right. Just because I share.

I feel like I need an FPA guy. Hat. Do I get a hat after this?

We can, we can work that out. I. I need to get some more ordered, but you give me the address in an email and when I get my next shipment, I'll send you one for sure. So definitely we can do that. You just got to promise to wear it.

Definitely will.

All right, so a little bit of background. Rohit is a strategic finance leader for high growth SaaS companies. With 15 plus years of experience, he's raised over 500 million and growing revenues from 20 million to over half a billion. He's passionate about AI, focuses on driving 10x improvements in finance, team effectiveness. He's very active on LinkedIn. I recommend you check out his stuff. He has a lot of great content and he shares clear CFO insights and every so often he has a good spicy take. You gotta have some spice in there. It makes for fun.

Definitely. Thank you so much.

You're welcome. All right, what does great FP and A look like, according to you? If I ask you to define great FP and A, give it to me.

Yeah, for me, great FP and A. I mean there's lots of different flavors of FP and A that's talked about. Right. So what people consider an fpa back in the day, pure kind of bean counting finance. Now their new flavor is strategic finance. And now there's a mix of both. So for me, when I think about what great FPA is, it's really about accelerating the business model, you know, about growth. So specifically in my world of SaaS, and smaller companies that are want to grow fast. It's how do you get them to the next level as fast as possible and then also how do you get them to the next level with as sustainably as possible? So that what, that's what great FPNA means. So there's a whole bunch of stuff that goes in there, but these are like the, the detail, the tactics really matter. I talk about this a lot in terms of like, oh, you need really good strategies. Like what does strategy mean? You know, strategy is basically a bunch of tactics like your go to market model, how you get opportunities, how do you close them, how does your financing work, all those things. So biggest thing is get that accelerating growth and don't run on out of money. That's, that's the key thing here.

I like that one. So don't run out of money. That's a bad thing.

Definitely.

Yeah. I was talking to somebody, I think it was today we're like, right at the end of the day, as long as you still have cash coming in, just about nobody shuts down a business. Right. You might sell, decide to liquidate because you can add more value, but nobody's shutting down and just going home if they have cash to continue to operate. Right?

Definitely.

And I'm sure you see that Having worked in SaaS high growth, you went through the grow at any cost phase that SAS went through. I'm sure you saw a few things.

2015 was a period. 2021 was another period. Luckily, I think both times that I went through that, I was at companies that were a little bit more pragmatic in our growth and we didn't kind of burn through everything. But I definitely, you know, when 2021s came around, it was, it was crazy zerb erase. And people were just growing. You know, companies were just going from, you know, zero headcount to a thousand headcount overnight. And then we kind of saw the downfall. So you definitely have to keep both of them in mind.

And what did you think as you watched that in 2015 and 2021? Were you expecting a lot of companies to crash and burn or, you know, kind of surprised by that, you know, kind of grow at any cost mentality? What, what was your take as you were watching that unfold?

I mean, you kind of look at it from the outside because you're not in.

Yeah. Yep.

And you're like, wait, are we doing something wrong here? You know, as a business, like, well, how. How are they growing so fast? What's going on in that business that they can do that. And you start to, I think when you look at the numbers, when you look at the Uniconomics, you start thinking about, well, this is, could be possible, but it's unlikely that this is going to be sustainable. And then for me, when I internalize all that, it's like, well, you know, focus on, and I tell this to my kids too, my 4 year old and 2 year old, it's like, focus on yourself. Like do focus on your business, focus on growing your business and everything will fall into place. So that's, that's what I was doing. I was like focusing on ourselves, focusing on, you know, on what we could do to grow our business in a sustainable way that, you know, we could grow, we could raise the next round if we wanted to, or we could get to cash flow, break even or positive if we wanted to. That's what I focused on as most.

And I love how you said focus on yourself. Right? You focus on what you can control. I mean, if someone else is able to grow that fast, they're able to do it responsibly and continue it. Good for them. Teach me what you're doing. Let me see if I can say, take something away from it. But rarely do you benefit by spending all your time focusing on others. Yeah, maybe a little bit. Give our audience a little bit about your background, your, a little bit of your career journey and how you ended up at where you're at today.

Yeah, well, let me, let me take you all the way back. So let's, let's go back. I think it'll help you inform where I'm coming from. So I grew up in India, moved to the US in the 2000s and right in that 20002010 era, we had a lot of changes in that 10 years. You know, we had the dot com boom and bust and then we had the great financial crisis. And when I was thinking about what I wanted to do in my career, that kind of, that whole period kind of stuck with me in the sense that there was a lot of money moving in and out. And I thought, you know, if I could just be around money, understand how it works, understand businesses, I could make a career out of it and kind of understand the world. And that's how I kind of got into finance and my first role. I remember I worked at this large public company and it was, it was funny. Like I was just working on one line of cogs, you know, that's it. And I didn't understand it at all. I was miserable. I was Like, I don't know what this is. Like, how does a business work? And that's after that I decided, you know what, I have to do this startup thing. And that was not new at the time, but it was definitely new to me. I was like, I'm going to go into startup, figure this out. And that's when I started doing startups. So I did a bunch of them. More recently I was at a company called Gusto for about seven years in the finance Org and now I'm at a company called Sprig for the last three months doing operations finance. And it's been an exciting time, you know, like I've been mostly in startups and I feel like startups are just so exciting because there's a new problem that comes up every day and you're just coming up with solutions all the time.

It sounds like it's that solution thing that really attracts you to the startup. And when you were working for that large company where you only get to see this little thing, you have this little process, you're pretty miserable.

Yeah, I would say that, you know, even a large company you can do that. But it starts. There's so many things that comes at you, you know, like you're solving problems on the go to market side, you're solving problems on the headcount side, you're raising money, you're looking at metrics. Some days you have to, you know, build a desk and you're like, okay, like we have to figure out this office situation. So there's so many different things that go into it that just, I think that's what keeps it very, very exciting for me.

Yeah, I was talking to somebody today that, you know, in the small business space and they mentioned how their retail, every black Friday he's helping pick and pack in the warehouse. All right, They're a small business. That's what you do.

Yeah, I mean that's the thing with me. It's like I'll do anything, you know, if you need me to, you know, watch the mail, sort the mail, I'll do that. I've done that before. I think that's what that's the fun piece about startup is like not that's a small, trivial piece. But what keeps it exciting I think is really is if you wanted to dive into one area of the business, you can really go deep and learn and figure that out. And that allows, I think the startup uniquely allows you to do that because a lot of larger companies, you know, let's say you're working at A big one of these fangs. Like you have your lane and you're going to stick to that lane. It's very hard for you to get out of that lane. But in startups you can really define what you want to do. And if there's a problem out there, you can go figure that out and you have the permission from everyone to say, hey, you can go fix that problem if you want to look into it.

Right? There's pros and cons, both ways, different personalities. But when you mentioned like fixing it and getting to see a lot of things and moving quicker, definitely if those are things that excite you, you want to be in seeing at scale grow. Startup is where to be if you want, you know, good processes, a little more stability. Some of those things you generally come with large companies. They just both have their pros and cons for sure.

Yeah. What do you like? Like you've been around the block, you've advised a lot of companies. Like where do you see, you know.

You know, so if I went back into like, let's say I went back into FP and a role, I definitely would want to be with a small company. Most my career as far as full time work and I not most, pretty much all my career was large company. So I, I started before I got into FP&A. I worked in procurement for the government. So as big as they come, right? The United States Navy Department of Defense. Then I went to grad school. After grad school I worked for American Express for about eight years. Right. Again, huge company. From there I went to a smaller company, still big. We had about 10,000 employees. About half of those were a call center called Solera. And we were a billion dollar plus revenue company. And it was there a few years and I went to a company called Digicert. It was, you know, smaller than that. So it was kind of each stage I've kept getting smaller. Then I started my own thing. And so, you know, now I talk to a lot of startups and if I went back to work for somebody, I definitely would want to be in the startup. The only thing that gives me a little bit of pause, but I do it now is just the work hours.

Sometimes with startups, I mean I feel like now you hit the stage where like you're your own boss, right? Like you don't, you don't want to go back to startup or a big company. I think that's the ultimate dream for anyone, especially in finance. I think it's like be your own boss because you get to Dictate your own time, dictate, you know, what you do, solve the problems that come up to you. So that's, that's exciting too.

Yeah, there's definitely a lot of benefits. I really enjoyed it. I did. You know, entrepreneurship is, was my emphasis in undergrad. I'd always thought maybe as someday I'll start my own business. So when it actually came to fruition it was really exciting. Right. I want to ask you a question. Earlier this year, maybe it was late last year, but you became an advisor for Recall Capital. Tell us about that. What's it been like advising, what do you do there?

Yeah, it's amazing. Recall for folks that don't know is a really small firm. It was started by Sarah and Shonrat and Yogi and I used to work with Shoemrat at Gusto and that's how we connected. And they focus on B2B companies across enterprise, SaaS, fintech infrastructure. And they're really at that pre seed level right when companies are really small and I advise them and a lot of other smaller stage companies too. And what I think is really exciting from an advice perspective at that scale is you're just trying to figure out the business. I've seen some scale, I've seen some growth. So my advice is really around, you know, hey, what does the CAC payback need to look like? What does the gross margin need to look like? Even like recruiting or hiring, it's like who do you need to hire and recruit and what does fundraising look like? And there's a lot of value in that I think from people who have operated before. I also advise a lot of companies that are building for the G and E Org. It's the office of the CFO or the office of the, you know, chief people officer on products like they're selling to people like you and I on what we can use. So you can actually also give products, product advice and I really like that because keeps it fresh. One I can keep a finger on the pulse of what's going on in kind of the marketplace and then it's just really exciting to give back. And I think you learn a lot too. So when you talk to other people and you're giving advice, you learn from them on what they're doing and all the exciting things that they're building. So I really, really. It's definitely a two way street and I love that.

Awesome. And you mentioned pre seed, so I'm guessing a lot of these companies are really trying to still kind of figure out the product Product market fit is probably one of the biggest things they're working on at that stage, right?

Yeah, definitely.

I.

They'll pre seed, even seed. I think I would say like product market fit actually doesn't stop ever in a business. Right. But yes, definitely at any given moment you're trying to figure out what are you building and what are you selling to your customers. And that is core for that pre seed seed stage. Even series A companies is exactly like who's your ICP or ideal customer profile and what are you going to sell them at what price point and where are you going to find these people? So it's really, it's really fun kind of having these conversations with folks.

Yeah, no, I love, I get to talk to a lot of people obviously in the finance software space. I'm talking to new companies all the time, usually a couple a week. And you know, just talked to one actually last night, funny enough. And I'd met with them a few times like, yeah, we changed where we're going as they got more feedback. You know, they're in that precede, maybe friends and family kind of funding round and that had changed a number of things and wanted to get feedback. And I've seen that with a lot of companies, they come around a year or two later and like, oh, the business has changed or now we're doing this or we realized and it's kind of fun to watch and really see how they develop, how they think about things, how they change. I think it's an exciting space and it's very different than usually the change is not that they're not exciting, just different that you'll see in a large company.

Yeah, definitely.

Cool. All right, so I want to ask a little bit about Sprig. Been there, I think six months roughly. Now you're head of operations and finance. So when operations, what all are you kind of in charge of? What are you running there?

Yeah, well, let me tell you about Sprig first. So Sprig is the all in one product experience platform. So what that means is it's really easy to use our platform to collect product feedback it in forward product decisions and really increase the speed of innovation for a lot of the folks in the UXR design and product world. And you know, a lot of big companies use us. A lot of small companies do too. We have customers like Notion, Robinhood, Ramp, all using Sprig. And for me, you know what my role there for the last three months has been, is really figuring out that next stage of growth of the Business. So I was at Gusto for about seven years, fairly large company, and it was really exciting. I loved working there. But the earlier stage company, you know, it's completely a different beast like I talked about earlier. Right. So for my role here, I think the biggest challenge, you know, we're trying to figure out is growing. For any small company, it's all about growth. So go to market is super important. Scaling the business, super important. So that's the areas that I focus on. There's also other areas that I focus on really around operation side of the business, like the people side, the legal it, finance side, putting in some infrastructure and then, you know, getting ready for that, you know, next level of growth. So that's important too. But the main focus is all around go to market.

Go to market. We hear that term a lot, you know, so talk a little bit how you think about scaling in that early stage and think about go to market. You know, what are things you think about as a finance and operations leader when you come into a new company and they're like, hey, it's all about go to market, figuring that out, figuring out who scale and what are some of the things that, where you start that you think about that.

Yeah, I've been a lot of companies at different stages, so 10 million, 50 million, 20 million ranges, and then kind of going up from there in terms of scaling. And the theme has always been, you know, how do we grow? So what are the things I'm doing in go to market early on, especially coming in, I think, from the finance side. So if I were to break it down, you know, I have this, this framework and thinking about it, which is first, you know, you're thinking about your marketing side of the business. You know, where are you getting your customers first from? Who are your customers? So, you know, the number of opportunities you're generating, you focus on that. Then it comes to sales side. If you have a B2B model, right. It's different than a B2C model. So for the B2B model, it's pretty much your AES. You know, how many AES you have, how's the ramp look like for them, what's the pipeline coverage you need and what's the conversion rate? So focus a lot on those B2SMB. Like I was like, gusto, completely different beast, right? Where you're a little bit more inbound. So there's, I think, different ways to target these. An earlier stage, it really depends on what the businesses, but it's really around, you know, marketing, sales Then you go into the unit economics piece of it, which I really like as well. And that's especially from the finance lens that comes in because a lot of the go to market, you know, you can have rev ops do it, you can have other folks do it, but from the finance angle you start thinking about, you know, what's the CAC payback look like, what is going to be the gross margins of the business, what's the, you know, burn multiple. So you really have that lens where you're thinking about the business a lot more strategically where a little bit more long term, not in a month or a quarter basis, but from a year basis. And you can bring all of those good things to your partners and help inform, you know, where do we need to go, what do we need to do, how do we target the market and what does the next year growth need to look like? So I really like that piece of, of the go to market of the early stage scaling business because a lot of unknown and you're just figuring stuff out.

How do you manage that kind of as a finance or FPA leader those early days you mentioned the unit economics, but any advice or how you should be working with the business and kind of helping it move forward? Because obviously time changing, a lot of uncertainty. Obviously unit economics looking at metrics is all important, but how do you really try to work with an influence the business and being that partner they need in those early days?

Yeah, it's tough in the early days because I, I don't think a lot of metrics really make sense. Like if you look at unit economics, the rule of 40 is like a great metric that people like to, you know, show a lot. But it doesn't work at an early stage business because you're just investing so much and you have no profits at early stage. Especially if you're in B2B, your CAC is, is going to be high. Your customer acquisition cost is so high, it's an investment you make and then you know, you pay back over 12 months, 24 months, 36 months, you really don't know what's good for your business. You kind of have heuristics, right? If you are let's say a PLG product like growth and product, your CAC payback probably should be a little bit smaller, right? Yeah, over months because you might have higher churn. If you're an enterprise business, you're selling to enterprises, you can afford to go a little bit more. But it's really hard to figure out that exactly where that sweet spot Is so what I like to do. I think anytime this framework comes around is like, are you making improvements on the last period that you're measuring? You have to consistently keep making improvements. There's some benchmarks out there, you know, that, that people post, like iconic posts. Some, there's a lot of other great companies that post, some where you can see, you know, oh, this car payback looks like it's 36, 24 is the average across, you know, 20 million or sub 10 million businesses. You try to, you try to hit those because, you know, I think that's how you're judged from externally. But internally you really, you know, trying to figure out the detail of the business. And like, you also ask, like, how do you partner? You have to go really deep. You know, I'm partnering with our head of marketing and going deep in terms of campaigns. We're thinking about what are these different channels of growth? You know, we have four to five different ones. We'll look at the details, we'll say, okay, where do we want to put our money? What is the biggest ROI we get? So you have to go, I think the partnership has to be very, very deep into the business. Yeah.

So it sounds like you're really, you need to integrate yourself, you need to be that partner, understand what's going on. And I like how you said, you know, early on, when it's hard to know what your metrics are going to be, it's going to take some time, you know, some general rules, looking at benchmarks, looking for improvement. Right. Just because you're not sure where you're going doesn't mean you still can't measure where you're at.

Yeah, the measurement is key here. Right. I think that's also something unique that your partners are going to look from you, the finance person, and that's because you have access to this data. And we, I think in finance, you kind of occupy a very unique place in the business where you get, you get to have your hands in everything. Not to go to market side. Right. You have marketing, sales, customer success, engineering, product G and A, everything. And you are bringing not just financial data, but operational data too. So I'll give you another example. I use this tool called Equals. You can use a bunch of these others. And where now what we're doing is we're pushing metrics down, performance metrics down into slack on a weekly basis into specific channels for success, marketing, sales, on what's going on in the business. And that allows people to see where we are. Right. So it's not a black box where, you know, the finance comes around once a month or once a quarter and it says, hey, you overspent and you didn't hit this target. No, you know, we're in there diagnosing things almost on a daily basis. And that helps them understand the business, everybody you partner with, but also helps you understand the business because then you can craft this mental model or even like a financial model of how the business supposed to operate and you can iterate, kind of move things around and figure out, okay, do I want to invest in CAC, in marketing or do I want more AES, what's going to yield the biggest ROI? So it's really important to be right on top of the metrics. And that's what I really preach is you just have to know what your business is. Especially as somebody who's leading finance.

Love that and I agree with you. As finance people we have to be measuring stuff and it starts with operational. Just because we're over finance doesn't mean those are the metrics you should be looking at first because as we all know, they're, they're lagging indicators. I think sometimes we forget that and just focus on those leading that you can influence and then review the finance. And if you're paying attention to making changes on those operational, you'll see the improvements, you'll see the positive sign in the financials and they're more validation that what you're seeing is actually happening than they're the thing that should tell you to course correct thoughts on that.

A hundred percent. So the only financial metric that I think you have, you care about or not care about, but like you have ultimate responsibility over is cash. Everything operational is still the most important thing I think in, in terms of finance. So 100% agree. Operational is the key, it is the leading indicator. It is what drives the business. You know, nobody's going to care if revenue was X or you know, networking capital is Y or you know, your cash balance was X. If you don't have the growth, if you don't have the customers, if you don't have, you know, people buying what you're selling. And that all comes from operational data. So I 100% believe in focusing on the operational piece and the financial piece obviously you want to keep an eye on, but it's not the, it's not the main focus.

I appreciate that because I think sometimes we forget that, you know, it's easy to be like, well we do finance, let's focus all on that. P and L Like you said, cash is the first thing you have to understand. Where's my cash at? Because if you don't pay attention to that, you run out of cash. It doesn't matter how close how, how good you were paying attention to all the other metrics, you're screwed.

That's right. That's right. You will 100% get fired if you don't know where your cash is.

Yeah. If you manage to have the company run out of cash because you weren't paying attention. Yeah, I'm pretty sure you're going to get fired. That's a sure way. But, you know, beyond that, there's a little bit of gray area, but that one, you're gone. All right, so, you know, kind of going back to go to market for just a minute. From your view, how does FPA help hold go to market accountable?

Right.

We hear all these things go to market often struggling, not hitting their numbers, all the challenges that would come with growing a company. So any advice from your end? Obviously, you need to be integrated. You talk about watching the metrics, but those difficult conversations sometimes and trying to hold them accountable to what they've signed up to. Any advice there?

Yeah, I have this rule that I try to teach, like folks that join our company, especially in my team, which is you never want to be in a situation where somebody says you have to do something because finance said so. Right. Because if you, if you're in that situation, you've already lost, you've lost the script. You're not going to get accountability. So for me, the way I keep folks accountable is with 100% trust. You have to build that trust. And how do you build that trust? You have to do something for them that they want desperately. Right. Whether they want to understand their metrics, whether they, you know, you. They want to help to think through an investment that they need to make. You know, you have to, you have to listen, you have to build that trust, and then you build accountability as part of that. You know, like you're, like I said, you're deep in the metrics. You help them expose the metrics. A lot of time, you know, people might not hit the goals because they just didn't know what the goals are, or you might not have the right visibility into them or the calculations could be wrong. So you're bringing in a lot of rigor, you're bringing in a lot of expertise and some of that ability where you've seen the scale. But you have to build that trust. And that's where I think you get the accountability. Obviously, you're going to have your dashboards, your okrs and all that. Those are all, I think, just scaffolding. But the trust is the main thing that I think comes in. And that only happens when you're deep in the weeds with folks and trying to understand what their business and what their challenges are.

So can you share an experience where you did something in a job that allowed you to develop that trust? Maybe an example.

Yeah, I mean, I'll talk an example right now, like, we're again, working with the head of marketing. We're going in deep, right? We're going in deep in terms of each of the different channels that we're building. So we're working on a campaign right now where, you know, a campaign idea that I came up with, for example, then we're putting that in motion. And you don't get to do that in, you know, bigger companies. Or if you don't have that trust. Right. Like, why would you trust or why would you take an idea from this finance guy to run a marketing campaign? And that's the exciting piece for me, because now I have that trust with them. The accountability to say, hey, we're in this together. It's not just your goal. I actually own the goal. So that's another thing I tell folks too, in finance that are on my teams like that support other members in the organization. Is somebody, let's say the head of sales missed the sales target, the bookings target. It's like, well, you can't just say they missed the booking target. You miss the booking target, too. We missed the booking target. We own the numbers. We're ultimately responsible because we're the one kind of shepherding the business along and holding everybody accountable. And if you didn't see or if you didn't forecast that we're going to miss it, you know, that's something that you should be on top of. So you, you own the numbers like I own all the numbers at the company. I will never say, hey, this person missed this. That team missed this. It's. We missed this. Because ultimately, again, it really comes down to finance, owning things and being a really deep partner to the rest of the business.

Yeah. If we want to be a business partner, if we want to collaborate, it has to be a we has to be team. Can't be you miss. As soon as you separate yourself, you're breaking some of that trust and you're removing yourself from the team. They no longer see you as someone that's in it to help them be Successful versus well, that's your problem. I'm just here to make sure you fix it.

Yeah, and you're never going to get anywhere with that kind of mentality. Right? Especially in a fast growing business, you have to be a partner and not a bean counter. Like that's what you don't want to be a bean counter. Especially in finance. Like be a partner, try to help them as much as possible.

And now a brief message from our sponsor. You know the numbers, now it's time to own the story. The new FPA Professional certification from CFI is built for finance professionals who want to lead with insight, not just report the data. With fpap, you'll learn how to build real world forecast models, analyze performance with precision and design dashboards that drive strategic conversations. You'll sharpen your Excel skills, unlock the power of tools like Power BI and Power Query and master the workflow's top FP and A teams use every day. Whether you're supporting growth, evaluating projects or presenting to the cfo, FPAP gives you the practical skills and strategic edge to step into bigger roles. Ready to lead where accounts build the skills, own the strategy. Learn more at CFI. Go to www.corporatefinanceinstitute.com. agreed. And I think that's why a lot of people don't understand the value yet of fractional CFO advisory. You know, having an early stage because many people think, oh, they're just a bean counter, they're just a controller, they're just looking at the numbers. And today, as you mentioned, you know, FPA has become much more strategic. You know, some people call it strategic finance. Sometimes that's a separate role. Everybody has a different opinion of where you draw that line. But at the end of the day, FP&A needs to be commercially focused. You need to be a business partner. You got to be strategic. Just looking at the numbers aren't enough. All right, so I'm curious. You mentioned earlier one of the tools you love to use as equals. I've interviewed someone from equals familiar with it. Would love to know what is it you like about that tool. I'm just kind of curious because our audience often comes to me for tool advice is as you know. So I'd love to know what is it about that one that you like.

So let's step back a little. What am I trying to solve here when I use some of these tools? And obviously I think tools are just the mechanism. Like you can use whatever tools but we're trying to solve is understanding the business from an analytics perspective and then also doing analysis on top of that. You understand it, but you also want to do some customization spreadsheet work. And you know, Excel works fine. Google Spreadsheet, you can do it in the cloud where people can share information works fine. But it's really about having that automated data. So one thing that equals really allows you is you can pipe this into your snowflake instance and it brings in the live data as your data changes. So every, let's say, week over week, you have your sales dashboard as those, even daily as ops come in, as deals close, it's automatically updating. And that's not unique, I think, to any BI tool. Like you can use Tableau, you can use look or whatever. But Equals Me is really easy because I can write SQL code and I can do all of that without a data team. And that's super powerful. More than that it allows, I think for me is to push this data down. So there's two ways I think people understand information, which is like you either have people pull data where they need to go find a dashboard, you know, refresh that dashboard, understand it, or you can push it. I like pushing as much as possible down to the individuals. So we use Equals. They have an integration with Slack where I can then schedule a report to the individual or a team Slack on a daily, weekly, whatever basis. And I like pushing that down. And that keeps accountability very highly. So going back to Neil, how do you keep people accountable? You show them the information, you show them the progress, you show them that you're measuring things. And so I really love that I can customize a whole bunch of stuff on it that I couldn't do on Google Sheets with the data that comes in. So it's just like a nice platform that mixes kind of that Google Sheets mixes some of that BI and just makes it easy where I don't need to spend a whole bunch of money, you know, integrating something like Tableau.

Sure. So kind of a lighter weight, easier way to do some of your BI and reporting with a spreadsheet environment that you can self serve.

For sure. Yeah.

And you know, all of us want tools like that, whether it's Equals or any of a number of dozen other tools, as you mentioned, you know, what are you trying to solve with the tool that's important first and foremost, because the reality is there's pretty much always more than one tool that will solve something.

Yeah, definitely.

So it's about what works for you, what are your requirements, what's the implementation like? Do you have the right processes and people, because tools are never going to solve your problem by themselves. Yeah, they won't be nice if they did. I wish they would.

That's the holy grail.

Yeah, exactly. When we get there, that, that will probably be about the time I retire. That's about how it will work. So I won't get to use them. So I know you're Quite active on LinkedIn. You post regularly, and you recently did a post around AI that I'd like to ask a little bit about. So you called it the CFO's Guide to AI Scaling Laws and how costs will fall over time. Can you maybe summarize that a little bit?

You.

You talked about a three components of scaling, so maybe just walk us through that. I thought that was a really interesting piece.

Yeah, I'll simplify this a little bit. So it's just to back up everybody, you know, Everybody obviously knows, ChatGPT, Anthropic and the whole bunch and how to use them. And now I think every one of our businesses. So if you're a CFO or in charge of finance, your company is an AI company, right? Whether that's AI, deep tech, or you're using some kind of a wrapper, essentially your wrapper, but there's an AI component, or you're not a company anymore, at least in the next five years. So just like I think you care about your AWS bill, you're probably looking at your OpenAI API bill and you're wondering, hey, how should I think about this? Like some kind of a wrapper. Essentially you're a wrapper, but there's an AI component, or you're not a company anymore, at least in the next five years. So just like I think you care about your AWS bill, you're probably looking at your OpenAI API bill and you're wondering, hey, how should I think about this? The growth of this cost in the future? Or alternatively, if you have an AI feature in your product, you're thinking about, how do I price this? So the scaling laws is really understanding, I think simply how these, these costs will come down over time. And we've seen that over the last, you know, five years. It used to be very expensive to run these models and they've come down dramatically. Right. So the tokens per cost is another one. So the scaling laws, it's really three different components, which is the data that's used, whether that's, you know, the data we have in the wild or now AI systems are generating synthetic data. So as they Generate more data, these models get smarter and they need to work, I guess less hard to do the work they need to do. Then there's a size of these models. Larger models take a lot of money to train. But now there's a lot of small models you can use too that are very specific. Maybe you have a very specific model to do legal work. Maybe you'll have a very specific model to do FP and a work. I haven't seen that yet, but that would be very exciting. And the third component of I think scaling law is around, you know, how much compute you have. So there's a lot of chip companies out there. Everyone's heard of Nvidia, they have a GPU chip, but there's a lot of other companies too, like Cerebras, Gro, they're doing a lot of things around inference and inference is that thinking piece. So you know, when ChatGPT says okay, I'm thinking, I'm reasoning. And that piece is actually quite expensive, quite more expensive than training I think the models and having the old models, the thinking piece could be, you know, on magnitude of 10, 100, even a thousand times more expensive than running the model previously. So I think understanding these things will be helpful for CFOs because then you can basically say, okay, I see the growth or the decrease in cost over time and this is how I'm either going to think about budgeting for these or this is how I'm going to think about charging for it if I have an AI product. So that's, that's kind of the 101 of the scaling laws. So if you took anything away from what I said, it is that AI costs are likely going to keep decreasing. So you should be investing and you should be investing double or triple what you're already investing in AI.

Got it. So short answer is costs are coming down for the three different reasons you mentioned. Invest and know that things will get cheaper over time. I think a great example is, I don't know if you saw Microsoft has created its own LLM for spreadsheets. Yeah, and you're right, still early, they haven't really released it, but when they built it, one of the things they specifically mentioned is it's 95% cheaper than a traditional LLM to try to analyze a spreadsheet. Yeah, right. And that's the type of thing we're seeing these leaps and brown leaps and bounds, if I can speak here. Right. Like deep seek. I think everybody was kind of rattled in the market and surprise, what was It Nvidia lost, was it half a billion or half a trillion dollars in valuation when deepsea came out? Because everybody's like, oh, wait, maybe we don't need as powerful of chips as we thought we did.

Yeah. So on that Microsoft end, and that's because that happened because of the data that they're using. Right. And the size of the model, they're training specifically on spreadsheet information.

Yes.

So that is, you don't need as much a compute power to do that model because it's so much cheaper to run a very specific use case, Deep Seek. You know, a lot of people think that they, and this is, you know, speculation, but a lot of think people think they just distilled the OpenAI models, basically took the OpenAI models, asked a bunch of questions, and now their model is based on something that already existed. So you actually don't need such a big model to do what they did. So. And I think there's a lot of things there. I don't know if you saw something else come out called Manus recently, just about a week ago. And what that does is uses a whole bunch of different agents, specifically Anthropic's 3.7 model. And it does a lot of work, like very interesting work, and it runs for about 30 minutes doing work. And I think that could be something really interesting for knowledge work and especially, you know, what we do because, you know, if you're looking at files, you're matching things or maybe you're doing some finance work like that could get very interesting. So I think there's a lot of innovation on this side. It hasn't hit finance just yet, in my opinion, to the degree where it has hit something like engineering, where everyone's using, you know, coding programs from GitHub, you have a bunch of others. We haven't seen that in FP and A just yet. So I'm really excited for that to happen for our field.

Yeah, we're definitely not as far along as like the coding one. You know, we're seeing new things, we're seeing more and more of the agents. But yeah, I think a lot of the potential and future is still ahead of us. We're still figuring out all the different use cases and the full benefit of it. When you mentioned, you know, the coding, I don't know if you saw this, but OpenAI had announced and not sure when they'll release it, but the pricing they're going to offer in the future. Three different types of basically workers for you, there's the knowledge Worker. That's like the entry 2000amonth. There's the coder, 10,000amonth, and then there's someone that have like PhD level reasoning, professional. And that's gonna cost you like 20,000amonth. Did you see that?

I did, I did. And I think that's really exciting. Also kind of scary. I, I don't know where I fall on this. You know, now that I have two kids, I'm always thinking about, you know, what are they gonna do in the future if they can't do the work that you can conceptually think about now. Right. So it's, it's good. It's also scary. Uh, but I am here to, you know, I like to embrace a lot of these technologies and kind of just, you know, figure out and play around with them because you just have to be ahead of it, you know, Otherwise I think you get left behind. Have you used the OpenAI, the $200 model that, that's out there?

I have not. My partner that for Future finance, I co host with Glenn Hoppers, used it. He, he liked it. He talked about it. I'd say a couple episodes ago he might even have talked about the one came out today. But he's discussed it a little bit. He's found he's got more than enough value out of it. I haven't spent as much time as I'd like automating things and different things with AI, so it's not an investment I'm ready to make. How about you?

I've used it and it's exciting. Here's why, like, it does so much research for you that you could, you know, you could still research things. You're looking at Google, you're looking at a bunch of different sources. But more than like what it writes, I just like that it finds things for me that I can go and look at. And that alone is worth the 200 bucks. Right? But you don't have to spend 200 bucks. Like, Google has one for like, I think, 10 bucks. Perplexity now has research grok a bunch of other. These. Everybody has a research piece which is that long thinking, inference piece, the reasoning models that I have. So there's a lot to be done there. And I think it just gets more exciting. I'm not sure if I'm ready to pay $20,000 or more for it just yet, but I think it's exciting that, you know, these things are coming out and hopefully, you know, I, you know, with the scaling laws that kind of talked about these will probably get Cheaper and cheaper as you go along.

Yep. And I mean, the other thing that's amazing, you think about it, you know, let's say it's good enough to be a worker for you. It works 24 7. Right. It doesn't need the bathroom break, it doesn't need to sleep, all those type of things. So it's pretty mind blowing when you start. Think of where we've come in the last to two and a half years with this whole AI journey. I mean, obviously it's been around a long time, but just since, you know, three, five came out.

Yeah. Yeah.

All right, so we're going to move into a section. This is the FPA section. I asked every guest similar questions here. So this first one, if I was to ask you what's the number one technical skill that someone in FP&A should master, what would you say?

Okay, I like rules of three, so I'll give you three real quick. So number one is, are you good at modeling? Right. You can't, you know, you have to be creative to figure out what are you going to do in the spreadsheets to get to the answers you need. So that's the most critical, basic skill that you need in finance. Number two, like Citi now has research Grok, a bunch of other. These. Everybody has a research piece, which is that long thinking, inference piece, the reasoning models that I have. So there's a lot to be done there. And I think it just gets more exciting. I'm not sure if I'm ready to pay $20,000 or more for it just yet, but I think it's exciting that, you know, these things are coming out and hopefully, you know, who is actually, are you good at writing? You know, a lot of work we do. And what I do is a lot about I, you know, with the scaling laws that I kind of talked about, these will probably get cheaper and cheaper as you go along.

Yep.

And I'm convincing people to do something else. And it's quite useful to have really good writing. So I think that's a core skill set that I look for when I hire is like, can you convince me to do something in. In written format? Not just something, you know, we're speaking, when we're speaking. And the final piece I think, you know, we just talked about this is like, are you good at AI? Because I think that is going to be useful across all workloads, not just like in technical fields, but also in finance fields. And you just have to know what tool to use, how to use it in the moment, just because I think you can. You could probably get like 2x more productive right now as a finance person if you know how to leverage AI.

Yeah, you can definitely be more productive. There's. There's just no question about it. It's a great efficiency tool. So we got modeling, writing, and AI. Now let's turn that over to soft skills. What would be your answer?

Soft skills really, you know, part of the job. Half it is technical, I would say, where modeling and all that stuff. The other piece is really a people relationship job. And I think about myself as more of it.

I mean, the other thing, that's amazing. You think about it, you know, let's say it's good enough to be a worker for you. It works 24 7. Right. It doesn't need the bathroom break, it doesn't need to sleep, all those type of things. So it's pretty mind blowing when you start to think of where we've come in the last to two and a half years with this whole AI journey. I mean, obviously it's been around a long time, but just since, you know, three, five came out.

Yeah. Yeah.

All right, so we're going to move into a section. This is the FPA section.

I asked every therapist, sometimes when I. When, you know, working with folks, because you really, you know, the number in that skill, I would say, is like, listening is probably the most important skill, is like actually deeply listening and understanding what somebody's saying. A lot of times they'll say something, but they'll actually mean something else. So you actually want to peel back what somebody's actually saying, ask the right questions. Why? What do you mean by that? Let me, you know, let's dive into that. Because sometimes what they ask is not what they actually want. Right. Somebody might come at you frustrated, but they're actually frustrated about something else. So listening is like a very, very important soft skill. The second one I would say is probably presentation. Can you speak to various audiences? Can you talk to, you know, people in your company? Can you talk to the executives in a different level? Can you talk to leadership outside, you know, when you're fundraising board members? So communication is also super, super important, along with, you know, that listening aspect.

Thank you. Yeah, no, listening is always huge. You mentioned we're in a relationship building, partnering role, and we have to be able to listen, we have to be able to communicate, storytell, do all those things. All right, I'm curious if I was to ask you, what's the biggest opportunity for FPA moving forward as kind of A field or profession, what would you say?

Yeah, again, I'm gonna sound like a broken record because I've talked about this a lot, which is, you know, I think AI is the biggest thing. So right now, you know, I'm using a bunch of tools for writing.

You know, we guess similar questions here. So this first one, if I was to ask you what's the number one technical skill that someone in FP&A should master, what would you say?

Okay, I like rules of three, so I'll give you three real quick. So number one is, are you good at modeling? Right? You can't, you know, you have to be creative to figure out what are you going to do in the spreadsheets to get to the answers you need. So that's the. The most critical basic skill that you need in finance. Number two, I'll use, you know, ChatGPT to kind of refine my writing. We I use another tool for meetings called granola to understand, you know, like to write down notes automatically. We'll use a bunch of tools in finance as well, like for writing queries in SQL. For example. Like, we use Equals, that has AI component. So using a whole bunch of these things, and I think it's making me maybe 50% more, maybe twice as more productive than I was. But I'm not to the degree where, you know, now you have engineers, you know, you have a concept of like a 10x engineer, where an engineer is 10 times more productive than the other engineer. And that was the thing that's been around for a while now. And now with, you know, copilot coding now, I don't know if you heard about vibe coding, which is basically people just like, tell the AI to do the coding. You know, you can get to like a hundred X engineer. We don't have that in finances yet. And this is what I think is the biggest opportunity is like, what is the innovation that's going to come out in our world and the tools are going to come out in our world, which is going to make me like a 10x finance person, where I can do 10x, I can solve 10x problem. Because there's no shortage of problems to solve. There's no shortage of people, you know, knocking on my door and saying, hey, Rohit, I really need your help with this, who is actually, are you good at writing? You know, a lot of work we do, and what I do is a lot about convincing people to do something else. And it's quite useful to have really good writing. So I think that's a Core skill set that I look for when I hire is like, can you convince me to do something in written format? Not just something, you know, we're speaking. And the final piece I think, you know, we just talked about this is like, are you going to AI? Because I think that is going to be useful across all, you know, can you look into this? Can you do this? I'd love to, you know, solve more problems. And, and I think AI is definitely that next opportunity that we still haven't fully tapped into. And I'm really excited for some of these tools, but also, you know, what else is going to happen in the next five years with AI so that, you know, it just makes me way more productive than what I do now.

I'm waiting for the thing that will make me 10x or 100x more productive as a podcaster, but something tells me if that happens, I might be out of a job.

You know, we might even replace you with like a AI spot. You know, there's a companies out there, Synthesia and a couple others. Yeah, well, how do I know you're real right now? You know, I don't know if you're real.

I am. I'm real. Trust me.

That's exactly what an AI would say.

Well, I'll let you just let you decide for yourself. You never know. Maybe that's how I get three shows done.

You know, it's not just fpa. Like, I deeply think about this a lot, which is like, what is again, having kids after that? I think about this a lot more. What does knowledge work look like at all? You know, is this going to be a thing in 20 years when they're out of college? And what about, you know, anything physical labor, is that going to be a thing? Because I've seen some, you know, examples of, you know, these robotics companies coming out of China and even the US where for like $5,000, these things are really, really advanced workloads. Not just like in technical fields, but also in finance fields. And you just have to know and what they can do, you know, like, can they even be plumbers anymore? Can they do construction? You don't know right now. So there's a lot ahead of us. I, I, you know, sometimes I think about it sometimes, like, okay, what tool to use, how to use it in the moment, just because I think you can, you could probably get like 2x more productive right now as a finance person if you know how to leverage AI.

Yeah, you can definitely be more productive. There's, there's just no question about it. It's a great, great efficiency tool. So we got modeling, writing, and AI. Now let's turn that over to soft skills. What would be your answer?

Soft skills. Really can't think about it because it's a little bit too, you know, demotivating sometimes. But I think the best thing you can do is like, keep your eye on the ball. Just keep moving forward and see where. See where everything kind of falls.

Yeah. You want to pay attention to technology and where it's going, but focus on what you can.

Right.

None of us can control what it's going to be like in 10 years, 15 years, you know, probably even a year. Right. So just put your head down, take advantage of what's there today, keep your eyes open for the future and keep learning. All right, so now I'm going to ask a couple get to know you kind of fun questions. So the first one I'm going to ask if you won the jackpot, big lottery.

Yeah.

Tomorrow, what are you going to do with it?

If I won the lottery, I. For me, travel is super important. With the family, I'd probably do that. I'd probably go to Europe, probably go to Asia. Travel around after that. Honestly, like, I want to keep myself busy. Also depends on how much I'm winning. Like, I hope it's not like 50 bucks.

You won a hundred million dollar lottery. There you go. You got plenty of money. Nothing to worry about.

$100 million. We're talking. Okay, we're talking big money here. Yeah, definitely traveling and like hanging out and then maybe doing something with that rest of the money. Advising companies, whatever. But I would definitely put travel at the, you know, part of the job. Half of it is technical, I would say, where modeling and all that stuff. The other piece is really a people relationship job. And I think about myself as more of at the top of the list.

All right, like it. If you could have any person's job in the world for one week, what would you pick?

Yeah, I always wanted to be the therapist sometimes when I, you know, working with folks because you really, you know, the number in that skill, I would say is like, listening is probably the most important skill is like actually deeply listening and understanding what somebody's saying. A lot of times they'll say something, but they'll actually mean something else. So you actually want to peel back a pilot. When I was growing up, if I was in finance. So, you know, when I. You seen Top Gun? The latest one.

Yeah.

I love to be in a jet like that. Adrenaline you get when you sit in that cockpit, and they kind of just maneuver around. It just sounds so exhilarating. I love to do that for a week.

So I. I think I mentioned you. I started my career with the Navy. I worked in procurement.

Do you ever get, like, sit in a jet?

I did not. But a couple of guys I worked with, one of them was. Got qualified to be a backseat test pilot. The other one got qualified to be a test pilot. They were both civilian, and they loved it. I did get to ride in a. I've done a glider plane. That's a unique experience. Never done that, which has. They have no engine. Right. You just. You get towed up behind a plane to 10, 15,000ft, pull the cord, and you got to use the thermals to keep yourself up.

Yeah, I think flying would be really exciting.

It was pretty amazing because you're in this little, tiny cockpit where you're just.

What somebody's actually saying. Ask the right questions. Why? What do you mean by that? Let me. You know, let's dive into that. Because sometimes what they ask is not what they actually want. Right. Somebody might come at you frustrated, but they're actually frustrated about something else. So listening is like a very, very important soft skill. The second one, I would say is probably presentation. Can you speak to various audiences? Can you talk to, you know, people in your company? Can you talk to the executives in a different level?

Can you look over the side? You can see everything. Now.

Does it have, like, full landing gears and all that, or you just kind of.

It has wheels and stuff for landing.

It's like a full plane. But just no engine.

Yeah, just no engine. And so sometimes people will be able to go. If you get the right area along mountains where you can get thermals. Four or five hours.

Oh, wow. Okay.

On a flight, sometimes even longer. Unfortunately, my stomach didn't like it as much as I did, so it was a relatively short flight. And I told my friend, I'm like, you better land, or you're gonna be enjoying my breakfast. So there you go. There. There's my unique story. All right, we're gonna do one more here, and then we'll wrap up.

Sure.

What's your favorite memory from your childhood?

Yeah. So I grew up in India when I was growing up, and. And we had this community, like, really interesting small community. There were about, I think, 5,000 people, and where you kind of knew everyone. It's kind of like a, you know, the 50s utopia type type feel. And I think what I really liked the most when I was growing up is, like, you Talk to leadership outside, you know, when you're fundraising board members. So communication is also super, super important along with, you know, that listening aspect.

Thank you. Yeah. No, listening is always huge.

You could just be outside playing all the time. I can't. I don't have a single memory of me coming home and not, you know, being inside. Always come home, go outside, play cricket, or ride bikes with my friends. And then, you know, my mom would call me when it starts getting dark. You go home, do your homework, whatever.

We're in a relationship building, partnering role, and we have to be able to listen. We have to be ever.

But that was just like a very, like, fun and exciting time. You don't really get that in the US Too much.

Communicate, storyteller, do all those things. All right. I'm curious if I was these days.

But I'm really trying to push that with my. With my kids right now is like, let them just, like, get out in the backyard and just play. It's a lot of fun.

Great memory. No, I remember being outside a lot and playing with my friends and in the yard as a kid as well, and feels like in some ways it's been lost a little bit on the current generation. Just to ask you, what's the biggest opportunity for FP and a moving forward as kind of a field or profession? And so trying to push that, I think is important. Right. So as we wrap up here, if somebody wants to learn more about you or maybe they listen to this and they'd love to get in touch with you, what's the best way for them to do that?

Yeah, you can find me on LinkedIn @rojo devate, or I have a Twitter handle as well. So just find me on LinkedIn and that's probably the best way to get in touch with me.

All right, perfect. And we'll put that in the show notes. Thank you so much for joining me today. I really enjoyed it. I know our audience will enjoy it. And thanks for carving out some time. Yeah.

Thank you, Paul. Really looking forward to your hat that you're going to be sending me, but thank you so much for having me on. Really? Really.

What would you say?

Yeah, again, I'm going to sound like a broken record because I've talked about this a lot, which is, you know, I think AI is the biggest thing. So right now, you know, I'm using a bunch of tools for writing, you.

Know, looking forward to the next episode we're both wearing.

Yes, definitely.

All right, thanks, Rohit. You have a good one.

Thank you.

Thanks for listening to FPA tomorrow. If you enjoyed the show, please leave.

Us a five I'll use, you know, ChatGPT to kind of refine my writing. We I use another tool for meetings called Granola to understand, you know, like to write down notes automatically. We'll use a bunch star rating and.

A review on your podcast platform of choice. This allows us to continue to bring you great guests from around the globe. As a reminder, you can earn CPE credit by going to earmark cpe.com downloading the app, taking a short quiz and getting your CPE certificate to earn continuing education credits for the FPAC certification. Take the quiz on Earmark and contact me the show host for further details.

Tools in finance as well, like for writing queries in SQL. For example, like we use equals that has AI component. So using a whole bunch of these things and I think it's making me maybe 50% more, maybe twice.