Hello Trailblazing CEO, this is Hayat 🚀
READ THIS!
You often hear the saying, 'You need to act the part, be the part before you ARE the part.' Well for startups with low to medium Operations Optimization - You need to start Acting the part!
In my career as a CFO or COO, I have noticed that before I joined, the CEOs didn't care much about the optimization or efficiency of finance and operations or even cultural processes. This is a shame because it is one of the most important reasons for success, as it saves costs, prepares you for scale, creates a culture of ownership, and, most importantly, sets you up for the growth you are telling your investors you will achieve. Act the part, be the part - get your company to be an efficient machine and SEE what happens.
Here are my top five actions to take straight away.
0. 🌟 This is my secret:
Company Vision + Financial Model + Forecasts + OKR + Tracking impact per employee = World class efficiency and scale ready.
💰 Cash is King, but Accrual is Queen: Do not use cash base P&Ls or forecasts! Especially for SAAS, Service, and E-commerce businesses. A revenue should have the exact costs it took to achieve that revenue every month aligned.
🤖 Tech-Driven Efficiency: Streamline operations with AI. Simply put!
📊 Data-Driven Decisions: You need to have a company Dashboard. No matter what! And if ALL, I mean ALL decisions aren't data-driven, especially at the department level, then it's terrible!
🤝 Don't worry about investing in your future: Outsource! Get part-time employees! Or On-demand ones. Understand Revenue and cost per employee and improve it! It's not about reducing cost but being clever with EBITDA.