Latest / The Diary of a CFO / What Technology Can (and Can’t) Fix for Finance Teams, with Campfire CEO, John Glasgow

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What Technology Can (and Can’t) Fix for Finance Teams, with Campfire CEO, John Glasgow · The Diary of a CFO

0:01
Welcome back to the diary of the CFO podcast.
0:04
Today. I'm so delighted to have with me, John
0:06
Glasgow. He is a CEO and founder of Campfire,
0:10
which is a modern accounting platform for meat
0:12
sized tech companies. Prior to that, he was a
0:15
top finance leader at bill .com and Adobe. Welcome
0:18
to the show, John. Thank you so much for having
0:21
me. Wassia, I'm really excited to be here and
0:24
excited to hopefully. add some value or share
0:27
some fun facts and insights with some folks listening
0:30
today. Of course, especially for you being a
0:34
finance person now, the CEO and founder of Camp
0:38
Fire. So why don't you tell us about your journey,
0:41
the story behind how you find yourself where
0:44
you are now? Yeah, it's a great question. I think
0:47
about it a lot and everyone asks. And I was a
0:51
finance exec at about 100 employee company. We
0:55
were really struggling with our accounting software
0:57
at the time and talked to the team and we had
1:01
kind of concluded there wasn't really anything
1:03
out there that felt like it was built for us.
1:06
We went on to get acquired by bill .com for about
1:10
$600 million. It wasn't accounting software company
1:12
itself. It was invoicing. Invoicing software
1:15
for businesses called Invoice2Go. We got acquired
1:18
by Bill .com for $600 million and that was a
1:22
great experience. But once we got acquired, my
1:25
largest partners, because I went on to lead partnerships
1:28
there, partners were the accounting software
1:31
ledgers on the small business and mid -market
1:34
side. Now that this problem we had at 100 employees
1:38
was actually widespread throughout other finance
1:41
and accounting teams. really went through Y Combinator,
1:45
the startup accelerator, to build the accounting
1:48
software I wish we were on. And so that's Campfire.
1:51
And we now have lots of customers coming to us
1:54
from these solutions I was frustrated with. And
1:57
when I meet with someone and they tell me, here's
2:00
all the pain points we're having, and I tell
2:03
them, I was you. You know, I'm coming from, I
2:06
know your pain and that's really helped us build
2:09
the product in the right way because I was literally
2:11
in their shoes. That's the founding story. But
2:16
compared to a lot of us, for example, we have
2:19
those pain points, but we don't necessarily go
2:22
and create something new. So was there something
2:25
that clicked for you, maybe a mentor or somebody,
2:28
something you saw that made you do that job?
2:32
It's a great question. I've always wanted to
2:34
be an entrepreneur. 15, maybe more years ago
2:39
now, I have an identical twin brother. Him and
2:42
I started a company. It was brief, but he actually
2:48
went on to be a solo founder about seven years
2:51
ago and went on to build a really big successful
2:54
business. And kind of watching him along his
2:57
journey inspired me in many ways to go take the
3:01
leap. You know, we joke, we have the founder
3:03
DNA, we have the same DNA, but that was one of
3:07
the inspirations for me to go solve this problem.
3:10
And my, I had a really difficult decision to
3:14
make. It was the same month my first born daughter
3:18
was born, accepted into the Y Combinator Startup
3:22
Accelerator. And I had to decide to leave my
3:25
big company job. I was reporting directly to
3:28
the CFO at a large public company. embark on
3:32
this journey with a much smaller salary and a
3:34
much and, you know, parental leave isn't as cushy
3:38
when you're when you're at this business. And
3:41
so it was a big high conviction move for me.
3:44
But it also gave me clarity that like, if I'm
3:47
going to do this, I'm going to do it right, because
3:49
I have a lot on the line here. And wow, it's
3:52
like being like, really executing and focused.
3:56
And so I've kind of divided my time now like,
3:59
there's family time. my wife and dog. And then
4:02
there's like work time, and I've had to make
4:04
some sacrifices and, you know, hobbies and some
4:07
other fun stuff that I used to do. I tell my
4:11
wife that, you know, campfire is my hobby. I
4:13
love I love coming into work. I love my job.
4:16
I was okay kind of offloading some of the other
4:19
hobbies I had when I worked at a big company.
4:22
I knew hobby. Oh, that's awesome. So you have
4:25
an identical twin, a supporting wife, because
4:27
she said, okay, go. Even though we have a baby
4:29
here now, probably two now. So a picture lately
4:32
on LinkedIn. I have a one month old, another
4:37
daughter. Yes. Congratulations. And that's good
4:41
to remember, right? Because we have life outside
4:45
of our career and how it helps our professional
4:48
careers. Does your identical brother pitch for
4:53
you too? Or like, how did he help you? Because
4:57
it must help to be a founder and have somebody
4:59
that just looked like you. I'm just curious.
5:03
Yeah, you know, when I'm going through things
5:05
on our journey, you know, he's been through it
5:07
all because, you know, they're further along,
5:09
like I said. So all my silent kind of co -founders
5:13
as my wife and silent is obviously not an official
5:16
capacity. Just this, but. when I bring problems
5:19
home, when I bring the wins and the losses home
5:22
to her, be part of the journey. And you make
5:24
a good point, like, all of us, whether you're
5:27
a founder or, you know, otherwise, you know,
5:29
we all have support networks with all people
5:32
around us, helping us what I call like your personal
5:35
board, that in your own life, you have your personal
5:38
board. And those are critical people, whether
5:42
it's family, friends, or just like work mentors.
5:45
These are critical people for your, just like
5:47
any board on any critical for the success. Nice,
5:51
nice. And then within your finance career, what
5:54
are some of the things that you felt really helped
5:57
you make the switch to be founder now, to create
6:00
your own company, addressing the pain point that
6:03
you had as a finance and accounting professional?
6:06
Yeah outside of like the product development
6:09
pieces, you know We we talked through a lot of
6:12
it certainly around like, you know, I manage
6:15
our fundraising model I manage our operating
6:17
plan I've learned a lot about like Forecasting.
6:22
Yes, you want to try and get the forecast right
6:24
but understanding like the key levers in a business
6:28
You know has been really helpful for me of like,
6:31
you know if this input equals this output Thinking
6:35
of a financial modeling way of operating leverage
6:39
and gross margin, and maybe you don't need to
6:43
sell for these things now. But even whether I'm
6:45
raising capital or whether I'm just thinking
6:48
about the long -term path for the company, an
6:51
end state can look like from a financial operating
6:55
perspective and how I'm going to get to that
6:58
end state has certainly been an area that's been
7:01
helpful. being really thoughtful and scrappy
7:05
financially and how we run and operate just because,
7:09
you know, like with our burn and then also like
7:13
dealing with investors and partners and even
7:16
like, I ran a lot of the pricing for one of Adobe's
7:21
products when I was in finance. When we were
7:23
building out our pricing plan at Campfire, you
7:28
know, I had some great experience there. I'm
7:30
like, pricing KPIs and key levers that I should
7:33
be thinking about from a pricing and packaging
7:36
perspective. So yeah, those were a couple that
7:40
really stood out beyond just being able to like
7:45
tell a story with numbers and being able to prospect
7:48
a customer or an investor and a new employee.
7:51
One key part of finances, you know, better than
7:53
anyone is like being able to tell a story with
7:56
numbers and that's Yes. And I think we sometimes
7:59
get stuck on the being the numbers person. Right.
8:03
So how do you evolve from that in your career?
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One of the hardest things for me, and this is
8:10
a very tactical one, is I used to always insist
8:14
on a PC. Even I went to a company, there was
8:18
a hundred people and they sent me a Mac because
8:21
everyone has a Mac there and I just sent it back.
8:23
Sell junkie. I love Excel, my keyboard shortcuts,
8:27
I don't need a Mac. But part of my evolution,
8:30
my next role, two roles later, was now as a founder,
8:36
I got a Mac, not as good in Excel anymore. And
8:39
part of this was being okay that I need to shift
8:43
from specialist to generalist. Like the further
8:47
up you go, the less technically proficient you
8:50
are at a very specific task. And so for me, a
8:54
lot of it was letting go. And letting go of my
8:57
depth of Excel was something I had to do, was
9:01
just accepting that now I'm typing and using
9:06
my mouse and Excel these days. But part of that
9:08
was an evolution of me into a role that being
9:13
amazing at Excel is no longer required. And that's
9:17
just like a microcosm of things I've had to adjust.
9:21
But how can someone like force themselves out
9:25
of it, even though they're still in the role
9:27
that deeply involve Excel, like how can they
9:30
either increase their visibility or improve their
9:32
storytelling or how can they do it when a lot
9:35
of their role is still, yeah, you're going to
9:38
look at a lot of spreadsheets. Yeah. My big push
9:42
for finance and accounting folks these days is
9:45
like find tasks that are very repetitive in nature
9:49
and automate them and that will like you're doing
9:54
you maybe you're doing data entry like you're
9:56
manually creating an invoice i was doing a lot
9:59
of repetitive excel tasks when i was in finance
10:01
is there a tool or even a macro or whatever version
10:05
of it is for you automate some of this and then
10:09
that essentially gives you a promotion in your
10:11
own way there's another maybe there's software
10:14
that's doing the task instead of excel opera
10:17
is doing it you're freeing yourself up to focus
10:20
on more strategic work. One area, especially
10:23
with like, you know, everyone's talking about
10:25
AI, we all need to reinvent ourselves in an AI
10:29
world. And part of that is like, AI is going
10:31
to take over some of these tasks that are very
10:34
repetitive in nature, stay relevant, it's evolving
10:37
yourself and your skill set. So I think it's
10:41
mainly just pushing yourself. The other thing
10:44
I tell people is whenever I used to present I
10:47
used to prepare, you know, a lot of work for
10:50
like financial models and forecasts and I started
10:52
to ask, can I be in the meeting when it's presented?
10:57
And part of that, and you need to, whether it's
10:59
the board meeting or for you, it could just be
11:02
like your finance weekly meeting that maybe you're
11:05
not invited to the CFO weekly meeting yet. Whatever
11:08
meeting that is that you're preparing work for
11:10
that you're not allowed to attend, continue to
11:15
push. thoughtfully and gently, like to be there
11:18
and pitch yourself. And what I would pitch myself
11:21
was like, Hey, what if you get a question you
11:24
can't answer that's super technical, I'll just
11:26
be on mute and you can just call on me and I'll
11:29
just help you out, you know, or I can take offer
11:32
to take notes for people, the meeting for you,
11:34
you don't need to focus and take notes. And that
11:38
allowed me to not only be more visible, but also
11:41
helped pull me kind of out of the day to day
11:44
work. And then also get me into more of that.
11:48
And then I was attending more regularly, and
11:50
then I would start to have opinions in the meetings.
11:52
And so part of this was me pushing myself to
11:55
evolve on how I think and operate. But the number
11:58
one thing is just letting go. That's a great
12:02
hack, though. I wish I had that earlier in my
12:06
career. Like you said, if you prepared one slide
12:10
in a multiple deck, be the one saying, oh, can
12:14
I present that one thing? That's very neat. And
12:18
going back to what you said about AI, right?
12:21
And how AI will automate a lot of things and
12:24
how we all worried about AI. Your solution has
12:27
AI. Can fire. as AI built in. So what are some
12:30
of the big points that you feel you automated
12:33
through that solution first? And what are other
12:37
things that that automation will allow finance
12:40
and accounting teams to do? Yeah, it's a great
12:43
question. The first things we're starting with
12:46
is the ones that I was mentioning around, like,
12:49
repetitive work to be like bank reconciliations
12:53
or transaction matching or, you know, It's like
12:57
things that are very structured in nature and
13:00
over and over again. I think spreadsheets will
13:02
always have a part in finance and accounting,
13:05
but if it's repetitive task in a spreadsheet,
13:09
I'd like to think we can get it and offload it
13:12
to AI. It would be more for like an ad hoc budget
13:15
or a one -off, you know, blank workbook. You
13:18
got to whip something up, narrowing the spreadsheet
13:21
usage for non -repetition. And so that's where
13:25
AI is today. Some of the areas that we're really
13:29
excited about is we have a product called Ember
13:32
that sits on top of all of your financial data.
13:35
And it's just like chat GPT. You can query your
13:38
data, like show me customer contracts up for
13:41
renewal this month. Or can you look for missing
13:44
prepaid or help build a Q1 budget? Q4 historicals
13:50
and assume some seasonality off of prior Q1.
13:53
Um, and we're, I've been pleasantly surprised
13:57
at how good it has been, but most people rightfully
14:02
so don't trust AI yet. And it will because just
14:05
like anyone else on your team, you got to like
14:07
review its work needs to be auditable. You need
14:10
to understand how it got to the conclusion. Um,
14:13
and you need to be able to. Like. Export it to
14:16
Excel, right? Because we're all finance people.
14:19
And then tweet it. I need that button. Export
14:22
to Excel. There's my download button. And so
14:25
we've been very thoughtful of like, it's not
14:27
a black box. It's auditable. It shows its work.
14:30
It pulls the sources and it links to all its
14:33
sources. And it's downloadable. We've been asking
14:37
people to think of AI as a member of your team.
14:41
Give it feedback like someone on your team. uh,
14:44
it gets better as you learn how to work with
14:46
it and you check its work just like, you know,
14:48
like I would never take someone's work from my
14:50
team and present it to the board. Yeah. I'd reversed
14:52
all the same principles would apply to AI and
14:56
that, and that's helping people rethink about
14:59
AI, I think in a more appropriate manner, um,
15:02
allowing them to push more tasks to the AI. That's
15:05
nice. And I like the practical use cases you
15:09
already have. And then the next step would be,
15:12
yes, sometimes we're like, yes, that's a great
15:14
use case. How do I bring it to my company? How
15:17
do I bring it to my team? Like, how do you convince
15:20
people to move through change? How do you lead
15:23
digital transformations? Because you've done
15:25
it when you were in finance and you know how
15:26
hard it is sometimes to push us through change.
15:30
Any insights? I think they need to be in the
15:34
right mindset. I don't know if I can always disabuse
15:38
someone of their view of the world. I saw a stat
15:44
from McKinsey this week that of all of the functions
15:48
within a company, finance and accounting ranks
15:51
like ninth out of 11th in terms of AI adoption.
15:55
So we're almost in last. We're not in last, but
15:57
we're almost in last. There's valid reasons for
16:00
it, mainly around like The tolerance for error
16:03
is zero, right? You can't have incorrect numbers,
16:06
right? That's table stakes. And we talked about
16:09
the auditability and everything else. There's
16:12
a reason that they've been slow to adopt, but
16:14
we are seeing more board mandates, mandating
16:18
AI on the company. Accounting teams have felt
16:21
they haven't had any tools that have really been
16:24
thoughtfully built for them to implement AI.
16:27
Like we see here at Campfire, engineering AI
16:31
is heavily used by every engineer at Campfire.
16:34
Our sales and marketing team heavily uses AI.
16:37
Finance and accounting teams are a couple of
16:39
years behind. And for the reasons I stated, that
16:41
makes a lot of sense. As the tools solve for
16:44
those problems, we're seeing not only the board
16:47
mandate, but people say, I'm tired of manually
16:50
creating a thousand invoices for a one week period
16:54
of every month. I just want someone to do it
16:58
for me. I want to give myself a promotion. And
17:01
that's, that's where it's, we're also seeing
17:03
sort of like bottoms up as opposed to tops down
17:05
from the board. Okay. Okay. And now in terms
17:10
of actually bringing it, um, to a function, cause
17:14
you felt the pain we have in typical finance
17:16
and accounting, right? It feels like the business
17:19
is having all these great discussions. They're
17:21
making all these great plans and with the last
17:24
one to know about it. And we have to catch up.
17:26
Right. So. Even with AI, how can we use AI to
17:33
help us bridge that gap? Because I feel sometimes
17:36
it's almost like sales and product. Sales is
17:39
like, yeah, we can do it and product is like,
17:41
wait, what? Did you just sell? I feel like accounting
17:46
has the same thing with the business overall.
17:50
It's hard when I was yeah in finance They would
17:54
you know, like the sales team would sell a deal
17:55
that we had no way of actualizing from like we
17:58
you know Not only the rev rec policy for it But
18:01
also how do we even handle the like how do we
18:04
even track usage from from? How do we even know
18:07
what to bill somebody? Yeah finance and accounting
18:10
the last to find out about a new go -to -market
18:12
a new geo It's super frustrating part of this
18:17
was This isn't gonna solve it. I can't solve
18:21
it for you The one thing helpful was I I had
18:25
one slide that I made and I said here's my charter
18:28
and I went around to each business unit and I
18:31
Presented to them. Here's my charter. Here's
18:33
what I do Here's what you can use me for and
18:37
here's maybe where you should not use me And
18:40
that helped educate them on when they went to
18:43
do a new pricing or a new market, you know Maybe
18:47
I pitched them well, and I would usually a little
18:49
sales pitch like, hey, if you include me, you
18:53
know, I can help you like build this correctly,
18:56
or can like, make sure it gets done. So then
18:59
if you sell it once, it's not no the second time
19:01
because like, they're like, oh, we sold this
19:03
deal. And you're like, okay, we can't do it again.
19:05
But if you involve me early, you know, maybe
19:08
we can scale it and we can actually have something
19:11
that does work long term. Part of that, again,
19:14
I can't solve for it, but part of this is just
19:16
like the evangelizing of your role and is the
19:22
only advice I can give other than there's a lot
19:24
of bad actors out there that are going to do
19:26
and there's nothing you can do about it. Yes,
19:28
but that's a great one though. It's part of being
19:31
a good business partner, you saying, this is
19:35
when you need to involve the team. This is when
19:37
I should be involved. And I think it definitely
19:40
makes things better when you are involving everyone
19:44
from the start rather than at the end, because
19:48
then I feel like we get all the pushback of these
19:51
accounting and finance people again. Here they
19:54
are saying no. I know it's hard because everyone
19:58
thinks of you like a CF no. And it's not about
20:02
no, but it's like, let's be thoughtful about
20:05
it. I would always remind folks when they ask
20:10
for something and I was ready to say no, I'd
20:13
always think like, I would tell them we have
20:15
the same desired outcome here. I want you to
20:18
be successful. Let's find a way for you to be
20:20
successful, even if it means like a different
20:22
budget than what you were expecting, a different
20:24
headcount than you were expecting. But we have
20:28
common shared desired outcomes is how I would
20:31
start the meeting. Yes, and that's a great way
20:34
to start, especially when you think about finance
20:37
and accounting being more of business partners.
20:40
And I think we don't realize soon enough in our
20:43
careers that we need to be business partners,
20:45
that we are in this together. What are some of
20:49
the things you would tell the young generation
20:51
of finance leaders? How can they be better prepared
20:54
in this evolving role of finance? You know, it's
20:59
moving so fast. It's hard to tell. Someone was
21:03
even telling me the other day, like, you know,
21:05
because as you know, I have two young children,
21:07
people are saying like, are they even going to
21:08
go to college? You know, and things are moving
21:11
so fast that it's so hard to tell. But my advice
21:15
for folks is where you can be helpful is like
21:21
the kind of your managers and everyone's going
21:23
to look to you to bring modern solutions, to
21:26
bring modern ideas, modern ways of doing things.
21:31
I used to be on a personal level, I used to be
21:34
up on all the social networks. I've still never
21:36
been on TikTok now, and I don't know, there's
21:39
probably another TikTok. I'm not on TikTok either,
21:41
so that's two of us. There's newer versions of
21:45
TikToks now, but I look to the younger generations
21:48
that I know, my nieces and nephews, it's college,
21:52
that what's the hot tool, what's new, what's
21:56
relevant, that's what you can bring. ideas and
22:01
fresh ways of doing things. And you can be the,
22:04
when the board mandate arrives to like, you know,
22:07
AI needs to be implemented within finance. You
22:11
can be the one that says, Hey, I just went and
22:12
demoed 10 AI tools. Here's two I like, and you
22:17
can help deliver, you know, uniquely in ways
22:21
that maybe other folks within the organization
22:24
can't. So that's, that's your secret weapon.
22:27
Being that change agent, yes. And leading change
22:31
too. And I feel like we don't talk about it much,
22:36
but how the project that you lead in your career
22:38
is usually the one that will accelerate your
22:40
career, right? Like you doing the same thing
22:43
every day doesn't really help, but it feels like
22:44
it's the project, the other stuff you do that
22:48
tends to... if I can say other spices to your
22:51
career. So can you maybe speak of any exciting
22:54
project you led? How did you go and how did you
22:57
really help you in your career? It's a great
23:00
question. And before I answer that one, one piece
23:03
of advice that's related to this question, the
23:05
last is people always tell me, hey, I'm starting
23:08
to look for any role. I found the higher up you
23:11
go in your career, the more the role is going
23:15
to be filled by someone is going to get you the
23:18
job. Um, that you already worked with. And so
23:22
you're interviewing for your next role every
23:25
day. And your current role is what I tell them
23:28
is I spent at Adobe. I was a strategic finance.
23:33
I spent a ton of time on this really large project
23:36
and having a great outcome. Um, and my manager
23:40
went on to be the CEO of invoice to go. transformative
23:44
I was for his team at Adobe that he brought me
23:47
to come be an executive at invoice to go. So
23:50
I think like building your resume through the
23:54
real interactions you have, I tell everyone your
23:57
current role is going to get your next role and
23:59
it's going to be someone that gets promoted internally
24:02
or externally that's going to take you with them.
24:04
And that is how I found a few roles. I think
24:08
the one that was the most transformative was
24:10
probably when we were in Wednesday didn't waste
24:12
to go doing corporate development and finance
24:15
and partnerships. When we I was tasked with either
24:20
like going to raise like a hundred million dollars
24:22
series D and we got some great term sheets there.
24:26
This is my first time raising like large amounts
24:28
of capital. So I was certainly like learning
24:30
a lot as I went. And then also like Exploring
24:34
a sale of the company and we ended up getting
24:37
some great offers on both sides for the sale
24:40
and the fundraise And so kind of my capstone
24:44
project was presenting to the board on both options
24:48
like blue pill raise a hundred million and double
24:51
down or sell the entire company to a great buyer
24:55
and outcome and We ended up choosing the sale
24:59
route and so then the delivery and execution
25:02
of the project was between signing and closing.
25:06
And then even some post -closing integration
25:08
work was probably the capstone project of my
25:13
career up until I went and started Campfire and
25:17
became a CEO. So that one certainly stands out
25:20
to me. Oh, yeah. And it's definitely in line
25:23
with what you had to do to start your own career,
25:25
right? Your own company, I should say. Red pill
25:28
or blue pill? Do I go for it? all the the fundraising
25:33
involved and the presentation involved, I still
25:36
think maybe your your identical brother is helping.
25:39
Maybe now I want to meet him. But it looks like
25:43
it's amazing, though, don't you think how the
25:47
things we do in our career, whether intentionally
25:49
or not, help us in the long term? Yes. Yeah.
25:53
On a personal level. I mean, people people don't
25:57
realize, like being a CEO, it's really the biggest
26:00
sales job. At the company, I'm selling new hires.
26:03
I'm selling customers. I'm selling investors.
26:07
I'm convincing people this is a place to be.
26:09
I'm the face of the company. And so, you know,
26:12
in finance, you know, when I was out fundraising,
26:15
I was selling why you should invest $100 million
26:17
in us. When we were being acquired, I was out
26:19
using slides and numbers to tell the story. That
26:21
was how I sold. But at the end of the day, being
26:25
a CFO is still a sales role. you're convincing
26:29
people on your team, you're convincing just about
26:32
everybody to deploy capital and come join you.
26:37
And so whatever it is, the further up you go,
26:40
the more convincing people to do things becomes
26:43
part of it. And that certainly was foundational
26:45
in this launch point and to start a campfire
26:48
as well. Good for you and it's a great reminder.
26:52
I should have probably taken sales courses now
26:55
Like I like you said at this level a lot of what
26:58
you do is sales I have I have a good friend She
27:01
she was an audit partner and she was like now
27:04
that I'm a partner I mean sales and everybody
27:06
that I speak to at that executive level. We all
27:09
feel like we salespeople Yeah, yeah, it is so
27:14
true And even as an accountant, it's through
27:19
every role in some way, getting people to align
27:23
to your view on things. There's a million books
27:27
on that. The more effective of the role, the
27:29
higher you go and the more relevant that becomes.
27:32
Yes, and what are some of you maybe book recommendation
27:35
or courses newsletter? Do you recommend for somebody
27:38
trying to build those sales skills? Because I
27:41
do believe that at some point in your career
27:43
you end up really being in sales Yeah, you know
27:47
honestly the number one thing And I can certainly
27:51
make some book recommendations outside of sales
27:53
to you. I found is all the sales people Like
27:57
you can just watch like an actual person's, there's
28:00
a lot of books out there, but one that I found
28:02
most helpful was actually is if you know someone
28:06
in sales, almost all of their calls are recorded
28:08
these days because they're on sales software
28:10
that records their call as new call recordings.
28:14
You're a real kind of sale in seat of someone
28:17
that's actually out selling today, but it doesn't
28:21
actually sound like a sales pitch. It's deeply
28:25
understanding problems. solutions to deeply understand
28:29
a problem. And that is like good sales doesn't
28:33
feel like sales fundraising, I'm getting them
28:35
super excited about taking on incumbents. And
28:39
so it's like solving problems and bringing solutions.
28:44
But one thing like udemy .com, Coursera, part
28:50
time professor, so a lot of those universities
28:52
have online classes now that are free or low
28:55
cost. going on and signing up for some classes.
28:59
I think, you know, a sales class, there's the
29:02
book, Never Split Lunch, I think is what it's
29:05
called. Never Split the Bill, excuse me. Never
29:09
Split the Bill, okay. Never Split the Bill, there's
29:12
some good business books. I like my favorite
29:14
books to, I don't really read anymore, given
29:17
the whole family and work thing I mentioned earlier.
29:21
When I was reading, I used to really like biographies.
29:25
of, um, business people, uh, the founder of Nike,
29:29
uh, Phil Knight shoe dog. Um, there's ride of
29:32
a lifetime, um, which is the Disney CEO story,
29:36
Bob Iker. And so those just like really now what
29:42
I mainly learned through is, um, podcasts. So
29:46
when the car, I draw my daughter off from the
29:48
way to work. And I listened to a podcast. Um,
29:53
once I dropped her off between her being dropped,
29:55
cause her and I chat and then I dropped her off
29:57
and then I listened to podcasts. So there's a
29:59
lot of good business ones or some sales ones
30:01
out there. And the sales side is called, um,
30:05
30 minutes to president's club. It's a little
30:07
more tactical for actual sales, but, um, and
30:10
then I listened to a lot of tech and AI and finance
30:14
podcasts just to stay sharp. Yes. I love it.
30:18
Just to stay sharp. Just that alone. I feel like
30:21
it's something that we should all have to do,
30:25
like all plan to do because like you said earlier,
30:28
everything is moving so fast. Like how do you
30:32
stay sharp when you have two kids and a growing
30:37
business and all these other things? For me too,
30:41
it's mostly through podcasts the same. I don't
30:43
read as much as I used to. So I have to find
30:47
other ways. I, I, I, I subscribe to masterclass.
30:51
Okay. So I get to, cause I, I was introduced
30:54
to it, you know, flying in Delta. I was like,
30:56
Oh, what is masterclass? And I started watching
30:59
their shows, but you realize that you have to
31:02
learn on the go. Yeah, that's a great way. Yeah.
31:05
And you know, whether you're on an airplane or
31:08
driving or on public transit, um, catching a
31:11
little, but it's also important. To just like
31:15
decompress to weigh into work all this new podcasts
31:18
on the way home I really try sometimes I'll catch
31:21
up with people on a call But I really try and
31:23
just listen to music on the way home try and
31:25
clear my head One of the hardest things I you
31:28
know have opening up a little bit here is like
31:31
turning off work when I get home It's like you
31:34
bring work home with you, you know Kids are excited
31:37
to see you. You really want to focus on the family,
31:40
but shutting off the big meeting you had or the
31:43
big winter loss. And so trying to use music or
31:47
something during my commute home has been something
31:50
I'm really trying to do to allow me to transition
31:54
to home life so I can really be present with
31:57
my family. That's a good one, because I feel
32:01
like it's harder when you are working remote.
32:04
So I feel like when I was driving to the office,
32:08
it gave me time to decompress a bit. By the time
32:11
I was home, I was putting music like in my ears
32:16
a little too loud sometimes, but it got me like,
32:20
okay, okay, I'm going home and then going to
32:23
work as well. But then I feel like being remote
32:26
It's kind of tough because your bedroom is down
32:29
here and your office is here. So how do you feel
32:32
about this remote hybrid situation and how we
32:36
can actually help you stop bringing work to home?
32:41
Yeah. So I used to be remote at Campfire. We're
32:44
five days a week in office. You know, you can
32:47
see behind me, there's office buildings. I'm
32:49
downtown. You know, I think coming out of Y Combinator,
32:54
they gave us some very strong advice that kind
32:56
of the early formative stages of a company having
32:59
the team in person just allows like the highest
33:01
level of cohesion and velocity and operating
33:04
as one. And so that's the approach we've taken
33:07
so far. I certainly see a lot of amazing businesses
33:11
get built in remote fashion from day zero, and
33:13
I'm not saying you can't. What I really looked
33:16
for in Campfire was like what I call tailwinds
33:18
and headwinds, which is like And I, you know,
33:21
it's like, how can I create as many tailwinds
33:25
for our success as possible? I think to people
33:27
much smarter than me, you know, at Y Combinator,
33:30
they have thousands of startups in the portfolio,
33:33
just heeding their advice on that to build in
33:35
person. My wife's remote. I miss working on the
33:41
couch with my dog on my lap. You know, it's a
33:45
big investment to be here. Do you think as companies
33:47
scale and campfire? We will be more remote as
33:51
we scale just because you, you know, you need
33:53
people around the world and you need offices
33:55
and other places for global coverage. So it's
33:59
coming. And as we have the institutional, as
34:03
we have the infrastructure to support people
34:07
in hybrid and remote places, we're certainly
34:09
going to like go that way. Right now there's
34:12
no real training. There's no real, you know,
34:15
we don't have a huge onboarding. You kind of
34:19
show up to work and you listen to a lot of conversations
34:22
in the room and tap on someone's shoulder. When
34:24
you have a quick question, um, we have no meeting
34:27
and no internal meetings at campfire other than
34:30
one 15 minute meeting a week. It's just, what
34:33
are you going to, what are you going to ship
34:34
this week? That's the one question. And then
34:37
you just start shipping and that's who you spend
34:40
all week on. And so we've removed some of the
34:43
cohesion that you get, um, that that's required
34:47
of, um, being in a remote world. Again, you can
34:51
be super successful remote, but we've decided
34:54
to go for every tail when we can. And I feel
34:57
like it, it makes sense from when I look at,
35:01
you know, my own career, probably your career
35:03
was the same. We're going, when you started out
35:06
your career, you were meeting people. And it's
35:08
amazing when I look back how much I learned from
35:10
those coffee chats, like break room and you hear
35:14
something and you're able to connect. And I feel
35:17
like early in your career, it does help. Like
35:20
you said, in the early stage to be in connection
35:23
with people. And then as you grow, you know what
35:26
you're doing. Yes. Probably understand better
35:29
how things are and you can do it remotely. I
35:33
think that's a good point. I was fortunate early
35:36
in my career. I was at places that we were all
35:40
going in. And so there was a lot of like, I think
35:43
additional training. It's more around the edge.
35:46
Like if you have a really important question,
35:47
obviously you're going to ask in a remote world.
35:49
You hear someone solve a problem in a way you
35:51
hadn't thought of this with them. Or you will
35:55
ask the question that maybe you maybe you wouldn't
35:57
ask if you had to hop on a zoom to ask it. So
36:00
there's a lower barrier for everything. But I
36:03
completely agree. Whether you're at a larger
36:06
company or whether you're more experienced in
36:08
your career, I think remote can make a lot of
36:10
sense. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. I think eventually
36:13
we'll probably get to hybrid because I think
36:16
there is benefits in having some type of human
36:19
connection still. But we'll see. We'll see where
36:22
the world takes us and where AI is taking us.
36:26
It will all be roaming around or floating around
36:29
in cars. I know. I mean, now they're talking
36:33
about you know, robotic AI and you know, it's,
36:37
you know, we've got the self -driving here in
36:38
San Francisco. There's self -driving cars with
36:40
nobody in them driving all over them. I freaked
36:43
out because I used to work for a company headquarter
36:46
in San Francisco and I was like, what is this?
36:50
Yeah. Yeah. No, no driver at all. Um, and I think
36:54
that's kind of a, uh, a preview into where I
36:57
see some of the finance and accounting going
36:59
on the, um, these simpler tasks, you know, there's
37:02
going to be no driver at all. I know you're a
37:05
CPA. One interesting thing we think about is
37:09
separation of duties from a task, from an accounting
37:11
perspective. For an audit, obviously, you want
37:14
separation of duties on a work being performed.
37:17
But can the AI be actually one of the individuals
37:21
either reviewing or performing the work from
37:23
an audit standpoint? Ember is actually stamping
37:26
that Ember completed the task. And as the actual
37:31
separation of duties with human and AI, or reviewing
37:34
my work on things I've done. Will the audit world
37:40
start to get comfortable? Where does the liability
37:43
sit? These are all interesting things that are
37:46
coming as AI starts to take over more of the
37:49
task, but you still need everything to be audited.
37:52
So yes, and it will be like the example you gave
37:56
of, um, separation of duties, especially for
38:00
smaller companies. Sometimes everything is done
38:02
by one person. But as you mentioned earlier,
38:05
if AI is a team member, you just enlarge your
38:08
capacity. No, it's exactly it. Like I said earlier,
38:13
everyone gets a promotion. That's kind of our,
38:15
our pitch. We're really not focused on like,
38:19
you know, replacing everybody. I truly believe
38:22
that as long as you evolve yourself and how you
38:27
think and operate, for a very long time, if not
38:31
never, there's a lot of accounting and finance
38:34
that will never get moved, replaced by AI. Like
38:37
we talked about earlier, continue to modernize
38:39
and evolve yourself and your skills. And that's
38:44
the best way to stay relevant in this rapidly
38:46
evolving world. Wow. Thank you so much, John,
38:50
for being on the show. I really enjoyed that
38:53
conversation. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you
38:56
so much for having me. This was awesome. I honestly
38:58
honored to be on follow your content and here
39:02
and hopefully folks found some value. If there
39:05
anyone wants to ping me, they can drop me an
39:08
email. John at meet campfire .com. I'm on LinkedIn.
39:11
And yeah, thanks again for having me. Awesome.
39:14
Thank you. And that's it for today's episode
39:18
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39:21
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