FINANCE OPS
If you can’t see it, you can’t steer it.
How Financial Clarity Transforms Startup Chaos into Scalable Growth
Startups don’t die from lack of ambition, they die from avoidable surprises. You hire too soon, scale the wrong segment, or run out of cash because no one saw the red flags coming. When finance and operations run on separate tracks, every decision takes longer, costs more, and compounds risk.
This guide is built for founders and operators who want to scale smart. Whether you're bootstrapping a product in beta or managing a fast-growing Series B team, aligning your financial insight with operational execution is the difference between momentum and mayhem. Inside, you'll get tactical systems and real-world signals for syncing finance and ops, so you’re not just moving fast, you’re moving in the right direction.
Provided courtesy of Dave Cotter, Finance and Operations Leader
LEADERSHIP
Building Effective Leadership Teams in Startups
Design Your Leadership Before It’s an Emergency
Startups move fast—but speed without alignment is chaos. While founders often carry the early load, real scale comes from a strong leadership team that can think strategically, act decisively, and operate with trust. Whether you’re hiring your first VP, managing a small group of execs, or building a cross-functional team, how you shape your leadership team will define your company’s ability to grow, adapt, and succeed.
This guide is designed to help you build that leadership intentionally. You’ll learn how to design your org for scale, hire and onboard the right leaders, create alignment through shared values and communication, and evolve your leadership structure as the company matures. Along the way, we’ll share practical tools—templates, exercises, and rituals—to make these concepts stick in the real world, not just on paper.
Why does this matter now?
Because too many startups wait until something breaks—misalignment, burnout, or a failed hire—before investing in leadership. A strong leadership team is not a luxury. It’s your operating system. Done well, it increases execution speed, builds trust across functions, and frees the founder from being the single point of decision-making. Let’s build it right from the start.
Provided courtesy of Jessica Green, Clinical Catalyst
GUIDE
Early-Stage Startups
Clarity Now or Chaos Later: Use Financial Insight to Control the Hustle
At the early stage, you’re juggling product, pitching, and survival mode. But without clear visibility into burn, runway, and cost per user, you're flying blind. This stage is about building lightweight but powerful financial habits: weekly burn tracking, simple forecasting, and unit economics clarity.
You don’t need fancy tools, just discipline and data that helps you act early instead of reacting late. Financial clarity gives you leverage, even when resources are tight.
Series B Startups
Build the Machine: Every Decision Should Multiply Value
You’re scaling fast, with capital and complexity increasing daily. But speed without financial precision leads to margin erosion and bloated ops. At Series B, the winners institutionalize discipline: real-time margin monitoring, cost creep alerts, scenario readiness, and tight integration between finance and operations. This is where leadership shifts from reactive to strategic and where every metric should tie back to valuation, efficiency, and investor confidence.
Series A Startups
Fluency Over Firefighting: Align Finance and Ops to Scale What Works
Now you’ve got a team, real customers, and investors watching. Every decision has a bigger price tag. At Series A, you need shared dashboards, scenario models, and weekly finance-ops syncs to keep your growth controlled and capital-efficient. This stage is about identifying which customers, teams, and spend actually move the needle, and cutting the rest. It’s no longer enough to grow. You need to grow with precision.
AI PROMPTS FOR DESIGN
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FINANCE
Dave Cotter
Fractional Finance & Business Leader
Dave Cotter is a seasoned executive, advisor, and founder with over 20 years of experience driving operational clarity and financial discipline across startups, growth-stage ventures, and enterprise environments. His career spans healthtech, enterprise software, and consulting, where he has helped build companies from the ground up and scale them with precision—without sacrificing speed or culture. Dave specializes in helping founders at the seed to Series B stage manage the messy middle of startup growth.