This is the forty-eighth session of Glasp Talk!

Glasp Talk delves deep into intimate interviews with luminaries from various fields, unraveling their genuine emotions, experiences, and the stories behind them.

Today’s guest is CJ Gustafson, finance thought-leader, creator of the wildly popular Mostly Metrics newsletter, and co-host of the Run the Numbers podcast. With a career that’s taken him from PwC to senior FP&A roles, through stints at Snyk and Veeam Software, and ultimately to CFO at PartsTech (where he steered the company to a successful exit), CJ now splits his time between writing, podcasting, angel investing, and advising fast-growing startups from his base in Naples, Florida.

In this wide-ranging conversation, CJ unpacks:

The origin of Mostly Metrics – how “stealing” his ideas and writing online for an audience of 400 snowballed into a 65,000-strong community and a top-tier podcast.
Playbooks, not theory – why every great CFO develops a repeatable mental model for pricing, monetization, and resource allocation, and how founders can start crafting theirs today.
Board-meeting mastery – CJ’s four-part framework for decks that tell a story with numbers, impress investors, and drive decisions.
Metrics that move the needle – net-dollar-retention, CAC payback, RPO, CARR vs. ARR, and the sneaky ways companies “dress up” revenue (and how savvy investors see through it).
AI’s real super-power – less about 10× coding myths, more about 20 % efficiency gains across finance, support, and GTM teams that let startups raise fewer rounds and keep more equity.
Finding (and keeping) product-market-fit – why today’s winners must stack multiple S-curves earlier than ever, and how benchmarking against the right comparables keeps you honest.
Career wisdom for future CFOs – brokering risk, being the “goalie in net,” and deciding when a startup needs a full-time finance chief.
Legacy & curiosity – CJ’s mission to tear down the gatekeeping around finance and leave a trail of resources that make business fun, accessible, and endlessly learnable.

🏷️ Chapters & Key Moments

0:00 Intro & CJ’s journey
3:50 Building Mostly Metrics & finding audience-market-fit
8:20 Top topics: board decks & investor communication
12:40 ARR, CARR & revenue “tricks” explained
18:30 Retention vs. CAC payback – when to double down
24:00 When startups need a CFO
29:00 AI for efficiency, not just growth
36:30 Private-market vs. public-market multiples
45:00 Stacking S-curves & staying in product-market-fit
52:00 Advice for newsletter writers & founders
56:00 CJ’s legacy and closing thoughts

Follow CJ Gustafson on social:

Read the transcript:

⁠Decode Startup Finance: Metrics, Board Decks & AI Efficiency | CJ Gustafson | Glasp Talk #48⁠

Read the summary:

Decode Startup Finance: Metrics, Board Decks & AI Efficiency | CJ Gustafson | Glasp Talk #48

Watch the full episode on YouTube:

⁠Decode Startup Finance: Metrics, Board Decks & AI Efficiency | CJ Gustafson | Glasp Talk #48⁠

Read the newsletter:

⁠Decode Startup Finance: Metrics, Board Decks & AI Efficiency | CJ Gustafson | Glasp Talk #48⁠

MadTech Daily: BBC Threatens Perplexity AI Over Content Scraping; Australia’s Social Media Ban for Under 16s Moves Closer to Implementation