"Tech Finance" with Sasha Orloff: B2B Fintech | AI | Finance Tech

Former CFO Nadia Asoyan shares insights on IPO readiness, financial processes in startups, and the balance between growth and profitability. She gives advice for aspiring CFOs, emphasizes cross-functional partnerships, and discusses the challenges faced in venture-backed startups. The episode also explores innovative pricing strategies for hyper growth.

Tomer London, Co-founder and Chief Product Officer at Gusto, discusses aligning product and finance teams for responsible growth. He shares insights on trade-offs between core products, expansion opportunities, and moonshot ideas while maintaining a focus on customer needs and healthy unit economics. Tomer dives into Gusto's iterative product development approach, fundraising philosophy, and managing the product-finance relationship. The episode explores the interplay between product and finance in startups, Gusto's Embedded Business Line Development, competition, fundraising strategy, and evolving thinking on CAC and unit economics.

Jim Cook, the CFO Whisperer with experience at Netflix, Intuit, and Mozilla, shares insights on CFO hiring mistakes, the CFO role misunderstandings, the importance of impactful communication in board meetings, and why being precise is a finance professional's Achilles heel

Sowmya Ranganathan, OpenAI Controller, discusses using AI in accounting, automation benefits at Rippling, and streamlining workflows at OpenAI. She predicts future accounting teams to be small and broadly skilled due to AI advancements. The podcast also explores the impact of AI on accounting, transitioning between companies, best practices for startups, and the potential of AI in reshaping the accountant's role.

Seasoned CFO Steve Love shares insights on high-stakes M&A, discussing challenges, aligning stakeholders, strategic decisions, evaluating targets, negotiating terms, and executing integrations. His experiences overseeing complex acquisitions provide a rare behind-the-scenes look at successful transactions.

Immad Akhund, CEO of Mercury, discusses crisis management when a competitor falls, rapid product development to boost confidence, and the customer-first approach at Mercury. He shares insights on navigating post-competitor crash challenges, launching innovative products, and scaling startup experiments in the banking sector.

Steve McLaughlin, CEO of FT Partners, shares his secrets for crafting fundraising stories that unlocked massive rounds like $33B for Revolut. Topics include storytelling, importance of product over marketing spend, founder red flags, and more in the high-stakes world of capital raising.

Mark Allen, CFO at General Catalyst, delves into managing billions in assets for VC firms, tech innovations in finance, intense moments like the Silicon Valley Bank collapse, the dual role of a fund and firm CFO, advice for pitching at General Catalyst, and more.

Siqi Chen, CEO of Runway, shares the 3-year journey of redesigning the finance platform to make finance fun. He discusses the importance of storytelling, centralized data, and creating a culture of fun. The podcast explores challenges in finance, product iteration, and the evolution of financial modeling tools.

Razzak Jallow, CFO at FloQast, discusses building trust with the CEO, responsible product innovation, and turning down a financing round that could have doubled FloQast's valuation. He shares advice for aspiring CFOs on evaluating roles, precision Q&A skills, and hiring top talent.