Big Systems Thinking for Building a Finance Org: Advice From a Zoom Hypergrowth Survivor
Run the Numbers
Navigating Growth Opportunities Amidst Business Challenges
This chapter explores the tactical challenges and opportunities that companies encounter in a rapidly evolving business environment. It highlights the need for focus on core activities while remaining agile to capitalize on growth opportunities, supported by historical insights on strategic timing in business decisions.
When the COVID-19 pandemic hit in March 2020, Zoom went from steady growth to hyperscale almost overnight, even generating a backlog of a million tickets. Sarah Riley was a finance leader in the company at the time. She joins CJ to talk about what she learned from the experience and how it impacted her in her current role as CFO of dbt Labs. She also explains the influence of Helmer’s Seven Powers framework on her strategic decisions. The discussion covers how Sarah’s evolved pricing models, and helped bring product-led and sales-led growth together into a single go-to-market strategy at dbt Labs. She breaks down how she uses big systems thinking to build out a finance org, how to create healthy off-ramps for pilots, and what’s actually okay to break when “moving fast and breaking stuff”. She also touches on the current use cases for AI in finance and for turning your team from “doers to reviewers”.
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LINKS:
Sarah Riley on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sarahjriley/
dbt Labs:
https://www.getdbt.com
7 Powers: The Foundations of Business Strategy:
https://7powers.com/
CJ on X (@cjgustafson222): https://x.com/cjgustafson222
Mostly metrics:
http://mostlymetrics.com
RELATED EPISODES:
Wasted Capital and Where to Find It: The CFO’s Guide to Spoilage Levers Leakages:
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TIMESTAMPS:
(00:00) Preview and Intro
(02:18) Sponsor – Pulley | Navan | NetSuite
(05:53) Being at Zoom at the Start of the Pandemic
(10:14) Challenges Caused by the Influx of Customers
(14:06) Takeaways From Sarah’s Time at Zoom: M&A and Build Versus Buy
(15:49) Sponsor – Planful | Tabs | Rippling Spend
(19:38) Taking Advantage of Your High Share Price for M&A
(20:56) What dbt Labs Does
(24:27) Pricing Evolutions at dbt Labs: Freemium and Open-Source
(27:51) Seat-Based, Usage-Based, Hybrid, or Outcome-Based Pricing
(30:27) Pros and Cons of a Free Component
(32:17) Finance and Sales in dbt’s Evolving Go-to-Market Strategy
(34:09) The Evolution of dbt Labs’ ICP
(35:09) The Helmer 7 Powers Framework
(40:39) Being a Big Systems Thinker While Building a Finance Org
(44:16) Moving and Iterating Quickly: Creating Healthy Off-Ramps for Pilots
(46:19) What You Can and Can’t Break When “Moving Fast and Breaking Stuff”
(47:32) The Current State of AI and Use Cases in Finance
(51:20) Long-Ass Lightning Round: Boundary Definition
(52:08) Advice to Younger Self
(52:56) Finance Software Stack
(55:20) Craziest Expense Story
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SPONSORS:
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#hypergrowth #7Powers #FinanceStrategy #bigsystemsthinking #GoToMarketStrategy
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