Latest / Scrappy but Successful [Consultant's Personalities When No One's Watching] / 48. From Goldman Sachs to Fractional CFO for Small Business with Oscar Casanova

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48. From Goldman Sachs to Fractional CFO for Small Business with Oscar Casanova · Scrappy but Successful [Consultant's Personalities When No One's Watching]

• 0:00
  What's going on, everybody? Welcome to Scrappy But Successful. It's a show where I sit
• 0:04
  down with your favorite consultants and we find out if they're successful today because they're
• 0:08
  sophisticated or because they're a little bit scrappy. I'm your host, Jack Tompkins, CEO of
• 0:13
  Pineapple Consulting Firm and Pineapple Analyst AI, always helping small businesses become more data driven.
• 0:17
  Fun fact of the day everybody thinks of Egypt when they hear pyramids, but it
• 0:21
  turns out Mexico actually has the world's largest pyramid. It also has the world's smallest
• 0:26
  volcano. It's only 13 meters tall. But that's neither here nor there. Today I'm joined
• 0:30
  by my friend Oscar Casanova. He's the founder of Everton Growth Partners. They're a fractional
• 0:34
  CFO firm. They help lower middle market business owners get sharper financial decisions, get some
• 0:39
  clarity. This guy's track record is off the charts. I've known him for a bit.
• 0:43
  Over $30 billion in deals closed with Goldman Sachs, high growth startups, Shopify, all this
• 0:48
  crazy stuff. Oscar, I've known you for a while. We've done some work together. I'm
• 0:52
  pumped to have you on the show. We know that you're successful. Question we have
• 0:56
  for you today. Do you think you fall more on the sophisticated side, more on
• 1:01
  the scrappy side?
• 1:02
  Jack, before everything, thanks so much for having me and thanks so much for the
• 1:06
  intro. Really excited to be here. you know, I'm not gonna lie, man, I've been
• 1:11
  thinking about that question pretty hard for the past couple of weeks, and I think
• 1:15
  that my conclusion is is a little bit of a hybrid, if I'm honest with
• 1:20
  you. the way I like to think about the question itself is there's two camps.
• 1:24
  the way I think through things tends to be more on the sophisticated side, but
• 1:29
  really where all the magic happens or really where the action happens, which is on
• 1:33
  the execution layer, that tends to be one hundred percent scrappy.
• 1:37
  I like it. Yeah. Everything's good in theory. Everything's classy and sophisticated in theory. And
• 1:40
  then pen hits paper and it's like, all right, let's just get this done. Awesome.
• 1:43
  One hundred percent.
• 1:45
  Well, take us back to the beginning, man. Where did you grow up and any
• 1:48
  entrepreneurs in the family?
• 1:49
  Yeah, absolutely, man. So my journey started in Mexico. I was born and raised in
• 1:54
  Mexico, came to the States in 2011. and to keep it short, surprisingly, no entrepreneurs
• 1:59
  in their family, excited to be the first one, at least to my understanding, you
• 2:05
  know, to be really embarking on this entrepreneurial journey myself.
• 2:09
  Okay, very nice. And as a kid, any entrepreneurial experiences, lemonade stand, bartering with friends,
• 2:16
  anything in that realm?
• 2:18
  You know, and Jack, I wish I had eliminated story for you and to share
• 2:22
  with with your crew here, but unfortunately, you know, none of that. The closest I've
• 2:27
  come across to, you know, really touching entrepreneurship in my childhood was being a basketball
• 2:32
  coach, especially during the summers. grew up in Mexico playing basketball and that was one
• 2:37
  that was the closest, you know, I ever got to entrepreneurship.
• 2:41
  Pretty good though. I mean, wha who are you coaching? kids, teenagers, what kind of
• 2:47
  ages?
• 2:48
  These were kids, roughly, you know, 10 to 15 year old. so we had like
• 2:53
  a a basketball camp every single every single summer. different ages, you know, ten to
• 2:58
  twelve w used to be like one age group and then thirteen to fifteen was
• 3:03
  a different age group. you'd be surprised by the different personalities and just like I
• 3:08
  mean, the part of like growing up is, you know, that tends to be you
• 3:13
  start to see a lot of shifts on also how people look, right? So even
• 3:18
  though the the numbers don't seem to be pretty pretty apart from each other, like
• 3:23
  pretty pretty different groups and just a lot of fun to be around that energy
• 3:28
  and and and and and teach them some basketball.
• 3:32
  Honestly, it it could be the most entrepreneurial answer that I've gotten because entrepreneurial is
• 3:37
  very it's very people focused. And if you're dealing with kids in that middle school
• 3:42
  age range where their homeowns are going crazy and nothing's good and they're they're going
• 3:47
  wild every single day, that's managing people and that's the hardest group of people to
• 3:52
  manage.
• 3:53
  That's a fair point, man. And you know, it's a fair point. It's as a
• 3:57
  matter of fact, you know, one of the biggest things I'd say that really now
• 4:01
  that I think about it in terms of in terms of entrepreneurship was a lot
• 4:05
  of the basketball lessons, you know, that I that I grew up. As a basketball
• 4:10
  player learning on the court are 100%, I'm coming to this realization now, like they're
• 4:14
  100% applicable to like how you show up as an entrepreneur, right? So a lot
• 4:18
  of the times I end up being in my own mind, being in my own
• 4:22
  thoughts, and actually coaching myself just by the very same lessons that you know that
• 4:27
  I learned on the court, right? So hopefully, long story short, hopefully some some of
• 4:31
  the kids that I got a chance to to coach, you know, got some some
• 4:35
  of those learnings as well.
• 4:37
  There you go. It's a we've we've had one other basketball coach in a different
• 4:40
  capacity on the podcast before. And he was saying he's still in touch with some
• 4:44
  of the players and some of them kind of became entrepreneurial. So I think there's
• 4:48
  a good chance that. I love it that man. All right, so give me give
• 4:52
  me like the thirty second, one minute what do you do today? And then we're
• 4:56
  gonna kinda build a bridge of how you got there. So give me the thirty
• 5:00
  seconds on today.
• 5:01
  Absolutely. So quick short of it is Everburdened Growth Partners is a CFO advisory firm.
• 5:06
  We like to think about ourselves as a CFO advisor, as a consultant, as an
• 5:11
  operating partner, all in one for the you know for you know less than a
• 5:16
  fraction of the cost of a full-time CFO.
• 5:19
  Easy enough, straightforward. I appreciate you. I I'll ask the question of like give me
• 5:24
  the fifteen, thirty seconds in today. And people will give like twelve minute answers. I
• 5:29
  appreciate you listening to the guidance there. all right. So you come here in twenty
• 5:35
  eleven. What brought you to the States?
• 5:38
  Yeah, great question. I think a lot of different lot of different things. full transparency.
• 5:42
  the the city that I was grewing up in Mexico was just not, you know,
• 5:47
  this was back in a day where like there there was real violence in Mexico
• 5:52
  and you know the drug cartels were all over the place. You know, so in
• 5:56
  an effort of like, you know, just you know, coming to a place that was
• 6:01
  a little bit away from that action was was was a choice, but also you
• 6:06
  know, always grew up and you know, always had Aspirations of like living in a
• 6:10
  you know living you know outside of my home country, really being in being in
• 6:15
  a new country by myself, right? Thankfully, I had the luxury of growing up in
• 6:20
  Mexico where I attended in American schools, so learned the language. came to the States
• 6:24
  in 2011 with a very strong accent, and I feel like that's been slowly fading
• 6:29
  away. but that's literally how how it started. It was really a combination of just
• 6:34
  where we were back in 2011, but also just that. really that ambition and that
• 6:38
  dream of really you know being in that country by myself and and getting a
• 6:43
  taste of what the American dream meant here in the US and exploring what that
• 6:48
  would look like in my life.
• 6:50
  And for folks on who are watching the video version here, you can just look
• 6:53
  at the background. The kid made it. The kid did it. He's in a high
• 6:57
  rise. He's got a nice city view in the background down in Austin. How did
• 7:00
  you land on Austin? Was it just kind of there's a there's a whole lot
• 7:04
  going on there and that seemed like a good spot?
• 7:07
  Yeah, I think you know, always You know, go went to school in Texas and
• 7:11
  for the longest time, you know, I always wanted to come back to Texas eventually.
• 7:16
  And so, you know, I just started my career in Dallas and had an opportunity
• 7:21
  to, you know, do investment banking at Goldman in New York. But there was always
• 7:26
  something about Texas that really resonated with my values, really resonated with my principles. being
• 7:31
  close to family was a big one. but also just the lifestyle and just literally
• 7:35
  everything that Texas has to offer was was pretty compelling.
• 7:39
  Very cool. And did s did some of your family follow you once you moved
• 7:43
  here, or are you still doing it solo in in Austin?
• 7:47
  Still solo in Austin, have a sister that lives in Houston, so not too not
• 7:52
  too far away, but rest of the family's still in Mexico as we speak.
• 7:57
  Okay, okay, very nice. all right, couple of random scrappy questions for ya. Got a
• 8:02
  nice place now, a little bit of New York City. New York City's all about
• 8:07
  the hustle a lot of times, right? you ever been in situation where you're doing
• 8:13
  laundry and you use two previously used dryer sheets instead of using one clean, fresh,
• 8:18
  new dryer sheet?
• 8:20
  I don't think that's ever happened, Jack, if I'm honest with you.
• 8:21
  Okay. All right. How about ever using a Tupperware instead of a bowl? 'Cause you
• 8:26
  ran out of bowls.
• 8:28
  All right. And this is this is where you really got me. And it seems
• 8:30
  like you you were pretty
• 8:31
  Yeah.
• 8:33
  intentional about that one. But I that's actually one of the biggest things that my
• 8:36
  friends give me, give me a hard a hard time. One interesting fact is I
• 8:40
  eat this the exact same thing every day. So four
• 8:43
  Interesting. Okay.
• 8:44
  different meals. And to answer your question, Jack, they're all in Topperware. So Topperware
• 8:49
  Okay.
• 8:51
  tends to be, you know, on the on the dominant side compared to a bull.
• 8:55
  Okay. What are the four meals?
• 8:59
  man, you're putting me on the spot, Jack. So for breakfast,
• 9:01
  Yeah.
• 9:04
  it's always the same thing. It's a couple of eggs, some Greek yogurt protein. for
• 9:09
  the two meals in between, I like to say it's essentially two lunches. so this
• 9:15
  would be like, you know, ground beef and potatoes would be one. And then the
• 9:20
  second lunch is the traditional chicken and rice. And then typically in at dinner it's
• 9:26
  gonna be mostly fish, mostly fish and broccoli.
• 9:29
  Okay. And this is is this out of routine, out of health and fitness, out
• 9:33
  'cause you're good you look like a pretty in shape dude. Like this is out
• 9:38
  of a fitness thing or just do you like the routine? What's the background?
• 9:43
  Appreciate it, Jack. Yeah, it's a little bit of both. I think But actually to
• 9:47
  take it a little bit a little bit deeper, I think it has to do
• 9:52
  with just my O C D and obsessive personality. I'm one of those guys that,
• 9:57
  you know, some people think it's a little bit insane. But like once I find
• 10:02
  the one thing that works for me, I just completely obsess all all over it.
• 10:07
  and I just adapted into like what I call the the operating system or or
• 10:12
  the routine. so essentially, you know, it started as it's it started just purely as
• 10:17
  a fitness journey, you know, trying to get in shape, especially in in the pandemic
• 10:22
  as you know twenty twenty, twenty twenty one. Then as I started like, you know,
• 10:27
  just Getting through the middle of my fitness journey, I realized how important nutrition was.
• 10:32
  Right. And you know, obviously like doing meal prep and all that good stuff, week
• 10:37
  over week, you know, trying different recipes. I just found myself so overwhelmed, man. That
• 10:42
  I told myself, you know what, I just need to like stick to something simple
• 10:47
  that I know it's gonna be a repeatable process. and there you have it. So
• 10:52
  this is
• 10:53
  Calling it.
• 10:54
  This is the byproduct of a couple years, Jack. And I will say this is
• 10:57
  the the for folks out there, you know, this is not something that I would
• 11:01
  recommend. I know that this is something that definitely works for me. And a lot
• 11:05
  of people, you know, give me give me a hard time and you know, give
• 11:09
  me a lot of make fun of me for for that for that matter. But
• 11:13
  I would just say it's just something that has been working for me. So for
• 11:17
  for for folks out there, definitely don't don't follow in my footsteps on this. It
• 11:21
  it definitely works for you.
• 11:23
  Calling it the operating system of essentially life though. I love it.
• 11:29
  That's it. That's exactly right.
• 11:30
  I understand it though. Yeah, a routine is nice, but a structured
• 11:34
  Yeah.
• 11:36
  operating system of how to run your life, it makes a lot of sense. It
• 11:40
  takes away a lot of like decision fatigue. Cause you make a bunch of decisions
• 11:45
  throughout the day in business. If you got the life side figured out, it's actually
• 11:49
  a heck of a lot easier. So I respect it. I like it, man. That's
• 11:54
  awesome. Okay, so take us you start you start at Goldman. That's your first job
• 11:59
  out of college.
• 12:00
  That's right.
• 12:01
  Wow. Okay. And then you do some pretty cool stuff there. that was in New
• 12:06
  York City. You're taking obviously some of that to go into the business today. What
• 12:12
  did you like about that kind of hustle and bustle investment banking New York City
• 12:17
  lifestyle?
• 12:18
  Yeah, I mean, I think I've always I dreamed, you know, when I was like
• 12:21
  a freshman or sophomore, I always dreamed about, you know, making it to Goldman, right?
• 12:25
  The reality is I applied four times, I got rejected four times, and then finally
• 12:29
  on the fifth time, they were like, All right, we might as well always just
• 12:33
  just give this kid a shot a shot, you know, back when I was in
• 12:37
  my twenties. so
• 12:38
  Scrappy.
• 12:39
  I ended up yep, ended up working out. It felt felt like it was more
• 12:44
  like a bulldozing way of getting my my getting myself into Goldman. But nonetheless, man,
• 12:49
  it was an incredible school. You learn principles on how to think strategically about businesses.
• 12:54
  And really just you get a very dynamic, you know, role, even as an analyst,
• 12:59
  right? Because you're doing the actual work, you're building the financial models for all this,
• 13:04
  you know, high-profile transactions that are appearing in the Wall Street Journal. You're putting together
• 13:09
  the pitch books, all the ground work per se, but you're also getting exposure to
• 13:14
  these meetings. early in your career you're able to see how CEOs think they how
• 13:19
  they think about you know their strategy and how to optimize for that right so
• 13:24
  it really gives you that that exposure and that ability to think in systems and
• 13:30
  to think about strategy long term which I think was really really really valuable so
• 13:35
  that combination and also the the last thing that I would add Jack was as
• 13:40
  I mentioned before I'm originally from Mexico I had the really good luck of being
• 13:45
  in the Latin America team team where I was actually supporting companies in Mexico that
• 13:50
  I grew up watching, right? Now being on the advisory side, but let's just be
• 13:55
  real. The whole ambience of being surrounded by other Latinos just made the whole going
• 14:00
  to work and working crazy hours, 100 to 120 hours a week sometimes, just made
• 14:05
  it really special. You know, and it was it's people that I still keep in
• 14:10
  touch with and a lot of fun. A lot of fun, a lot of fun
• 14:15
  behind behind the desk for sure.
• 14:18
  Awesome, man. Okay, that's very cool. So you got you got kind of just I
• 14:21
  don't want to say accidentally placed there, but it was more of a luck-of-the-draw thing
• 14:25
  for you, you're saying.
• 14:26
  It was definitely a matter of creating the opportunity. And I've always been a believer
• 14:31
  on lock, you know, the intersection of, you know, opportunity and preparation. But and that's
• 14:36
  often what you hear time and time again from Oprah and all this, like all
• 14:42
  this other celebrities. But I think what often gets missed on that conversation is create
• 14:47
  your ability to create serendipitous moments. How I actually got to that seat is a
• 14:52
  it's a whole different different story, which I'm happy to like dive into. but really
• 14:58
  it was it was a byproduct of that as well, just being at the right
• 15:03
  place at the right time, having the right conversations with the right people. And ironically,
• 15:08
  Jack, I wasn't actually looking for the role. It just kind of like naturally fell
• 15:14
  on my lap by just creating genuine, interesting conversations with folks.
• 15:18
  we had a previous guest, Anna McGovern. The only KPI that she tracks is the
• 15:21
  number of conversations that she has. Because she thinks that if she's having good conversations
• 15:25
  with good people, opportunity comes from it. And it's, you know, pick your favorite cliche.
• 15:29
  The harder you work, the luckier you get, whatever that is. So did you did
• 15:33
  you have that mindset fresh out of college of like, all right, I'm gonna go
• 15:37
  just have really good conversations with really smart people and see what happens? Like how
• 15:40
  how tell us the story of how you got onto that team.
• 15:44
  Yeah, you know what, I've always I don't think I was consciously aware of it,
• 15:49
  but I do believe that at some subconscious level I was aware of it, if
• 15:54
  that makes sense. so my my mindset has always been, you know, being in the
• 15:59
  right place, being in the right room, creating the opportunities yourself and creating the odds
• 16:04
  for luck to be in your favor. That was always been my philosophy, but I
• 16:09
  feel that the throughout the course of, you know, my life as I, you know,
• 16:14
  continue to grow and mature, you know, now in my mid thirties, I've come to
• 16:19
  a realization that it really is a matter of, you know. Just literally like focusing
• 16:24
  on leading with curiosity and leading with genuineness. I think that there's something incredibly powerful
• 16:29
  that happens when you connect with people from an authentic lens. and we as humans,
• 16:34
  like psychologically, right, comes down to one of our foundational needs is connection, right? And
• 16:39
  leading with that and really tapping into that has has really been, you know, kind
• 16:44
  of like the the philosophy behind even why I'm doing what I'm doing as a
• 16:49
  as a CFO advisor here at Everburden. but early in my career I feel like
• 16:54
  it was always the mindset of that on a subconscious level, but on a conscious
• 16:59
  level just just working really hard and always being you know nice to people, but
• 17:04
  also you know being being of service, being of value, right? I feel like that
• 17:09
  really really opened a lot of doors early in my career.
• 17:13
  Honestly, that's why I started this podcast. I I will be having like a a
• 17:16
  pretty not like a a low day or anything like that. And then I'm like,
• 17:20
  all I gotta go report record this podcast. And then after I record, I like,
• 17:24
  all right, I was genuinely curious about that story. I got a lot of good
• 17:28
  info. I got some good business insights too. There's it the rest of my day
• 17:32
  is like always positive. So I'm very much in the same boat. Take us that
• 17:36
  same journey. So now and I messed up the name in the beginning. I I
• 17:40
  apologize. Ever verdant, not Everdant, Eververdent Growth Partners. How do you take that same genuine
• 17:44
  curiosity to find your first clients for Everburden?
• 17:47
  Yeah, totally. I think that, you know, it starts with the problem. It really starts
• 17:51
  with understanding why you're doing what you're doing. And even before you get there, you
• 17:56
  know, it starts with your own story, right? So to make a long story short,
• 18:01
  starting with the story element, Jack, you know, it was really a matter of like
• 18:06
  looking myself deeply in the mirror and really just realizing, who am I? What am
• 18:10
  I doing in the States? Like I'm an immigrant to this country. What the hell
• 18:15
  am I even doing here? Right. Let's just be real. And again, like I've been
• 18:20
  really blessed. really privileged to have this beautiful country of ours, you know, open the
• 18:25
  doors for me for, you know, really starting my career in the Goldman's and then
• 18:29
  the Shopify's and the sailors of the world, right? And I'm pretty sure you you've
• 18:34
  experienced it as well in your in your career, Jack, that, you know, there was
• 18:39
  always been a calling about doing something bigger than your own interests and serving others.
• 18:44
  Corporate really as much as it is an incredible school of learning the skills and
• 18:48
  being connecting to others, connected to others. it was about time for me to like
• 18:53
  look at a different direction. And that really stemmed from actually at Shopify, you know,
• 18:58
  looking at some sobering numbers and understanding that, you know, we were in the, you
• 19:03
  know, Shopify, as you know, is the leading e-commerce platform in the entire world providing
• 19:07
  world-class software to, you know, small businesses that need it the most. And still, Jack,
• 19:12
  you're seeing, you know, 80% of those small businesses in general not even making. their
• 19:17
  10th anniversary. So to me, right, like when I started looking into like what those
• 19:22
  businesses are and how the big market, you know, how the market is in general,
• 19:26
  I started realizing that, you know, really the huge backbone of this economy is really
• 19:31
  on those small businesses and also in the lower middle market. And then I started
• 19:36
  peeling the onion and getting a little bit deeper on that, right? And I started
• 19:41
  to realize hey like a lot of these businesses are failing, not because of a
• 19:45
  lack of ambition, not because of a lack of technology. But because there's a point
• 19:50
  in which the growth of the business and the trajectory completely outpaces the rigor for
• 19:55
  operations and financial discipline, right? You will never see that happening in the metas, the
• 20:00
  Googles, the Amazons of the world, Jack, because with there's very talented people behind that
• 20:04
  desk. But where are those talented people on the businesses that actually drive this economy
• 20:09
  and make it a trillion you know trillion dollar GDP that we have today? Right.
• 20:14
  And the the answer is there's a gap. And there's a need for that. And
• 20:19
  going back to my story, I reflected very deeply on how incredible would it be
• 20:23
  for me as an immigrant to get back to this country and to really give
• 20:28
  back because this country has just literally transformed my life, right? so it starts with
• 20:33
  that story, right? And then to answer your question more directly with that foundation and
• 20:38
  that motivation of knowing my origin, knowing what I'm doing, and knowing what my my
• 20:43
  what my story is and what the motivation is, you know, it really leads with
• 20:47
  that. It really leads with, you know, how can I be of service to others?
• 20:52
  How can I impact others? But in terms of winning a client, it's not about
• 20:57
  telling them your story. It's about leading with curiosity. It's about leading with, tell me
• 21:02
  about you. I'm hungry to help you, but the I know the best way for
• 21:06
  me to help you is I want to know everything about you. I want to
• 21:11
  know why did you even got into entrepreneurship? Why did you do this to yourself?
• 21:16
  What was your motivation, right? And incredibly so, Jack. It is through those conversations that
• 21:21
  I actually get the most energy because I feel I feel the most aligned with
• 21:25
  my values. I feel like I'm really, you know, staying up, you know, staying aligned
• 21:30
  with those values and really listening to those folks. Entrepreneurship, as you know, it is
• 21:35
  a pretty could be a pretty lonely journey, right? And a lot of the times,
• 21:40
  like people just appreciate having you know a pair of ears or someone to to
• 21:44
  just share their story with. So I think it it really goes a long way.
• 21:49
  So the philosophy hasn't been we need to acquire as many clients by by this
• 21:54
  timeline. It has always been how can we how can we you know listen to
• 21:59
  others? How can we actually make them feel heard, understood, and how can we leave
• 22:03
  them at a better place before than when we actually started the conversation?
• 22:08
  A lot of a lot of people say we help with business growth. Like, all
• 22:13
  right, cool, that's sure everybody's trying do that, right? Yours is you're almost a human
• 22:18
  connection company where fractional CFOing is just the vehicle that you use to do that.
• 22:23
  That's right. That's a you know, it's surprisingly the very first time that someone has
• 22:27
  says that says set that externally in words, but that's a beautiful way to put
• 22:31
  it. I might actually steal that copy from you, Jack.
• 22:34
  Go for it. Go for it, man. I like it. I think there's a lot
• 22:38
  of value in having a genuine connection with clients and even like referral partners, friends,
• 22:42
  or like whoever it is. Like I especially in this business that we're in in
• 22:47
  the small business world, you gotta have that like I the the old saying was
• 22:51
  I got a guy for everything, right? And now it's like, okay, that's still true,
• 22:55
  but you you had that feeling when you had connection with those people and they
• 23:00
  happened to do something that was really valuable and you had something really valuable for
• 23:04
  them. And that's why I love the small business world, 'cause like you and I
• 23:08
  met and instantly connected. We're kind of in the same stage of life in a
• 23:13
  couple different ways. And to your point, it's pretty lonely. But you find some of
• 23:17
  these people where it's like, okay, that like Oscar's my guy. This is great. We
• 23:22
  can have a genuine fun conversation. It makes all the difference in the world. so
• 23:26
  kudos to you, man. How have you how have you gotten your those first few
• 23:30
  clients? It's through this stories, through this genuine connection. They say, wait, what do you
• 23:35
  do again? Can I hire you? Is that kind of how it works?
• 23:39
  One hundred percent, yes. And I and I and I think it it's so ironic,
• 23:44
  right? Because I think the we live in a world, especially coming from a corporate
• 23:49
  side, I'm pretty sure you you've experienced this as well, Jack, where the way corporate
• 23:54
  and life teaches us. to operate is based on outcomes, right? And oftentimes more times
• 23:59
  than not, we that we let the very same outcomes define our trajectory, define how
• 24:04
  we feel, define, you know, how valuable we are, right? And it's just such a
• 24:09
  you know, it's it's literally such a bad way to like go about life, right?
• 24:14
  Because you're focusing on like, you know, the outputs and one week you can have
• 24:19
  like five hundred or fifty conversations and everyone wants to work with you and then
• 24:24
  the following week you get ghosted by everybody, right? And then You go from feeling
• 24:29
  on top of the world to literally feeling like you're not adding any value and
• 24:34
  it you know can lead to to some to some of that, right? But I
• 24:39
  think to actually shift that equation, what would happen if we actually start? That was
• 24:44
  the bit the the biggest learning early in my journey as an entrepreneur is like,
• 24:49
  what if instead of obsessing about the outcomes, you start obsessing about the inputs? And
• 24:54
  what if instead of going to bed every night and asking yourself how many clients
• 24:59
  Clients that I win. You know, why did you why did why don't you ask
• 25:04
  yourself, how many people that I served today? How many people that I added value
• 25:09
  to? Right? And like it's really those inputs. And then the irony behind it, Jack,
• 25:14
  is you surrender from the outcome. Not give up, but you surrender from the outcome.
• 25:19
  And it's at that moment of surrendering that you're allowing things to happen organically, that
• 25:24
  you just start obsessing about. the inputs and the conversations you're having and when you
• 25:29
  surrender to the outcome ironically that's when people start calling you back and say hey
• 25:34
  I wanna like I need you yesterday when where do I sign? Right? So I
• 25:39
  think I tell that story because that's that's that's been that's been the the way
• 25:44
  that we've been acquiring clients so far.
• 25:47
  Okay, and let me dive into that a little bit. When you say surrender to
• 25:50
  the outcome, that are you saying like it's gonna happen. It may not have happened
• 25:54
  today, but I know it's gonna eventually happen. Is that sort of the surrender that
• 25:58
  you're talking about?
• 25:59
  It kind of, yes. The really the An executive coach did a a phenomenal job
• 26:04
  like teaching me the the the concept between surrendering and giving up, right? Giving up
• 26:09
  is just literally throwing the white towel and saying I'm done, right? Surrendering is like
• 26:14
  almost coming from a place of trusting that it is going to happen, but you
• 26:19
  cannot control when and how that's gonna happen. And I think that you know, one
• 26:24
  of the biggest flaws that we humans tend to have is the need to control,
• 26:29
  especially as entrepreneurs, right? Like we're in control. We were wearing so many different hats.
• 26:34
  We want to be in control of every single decision. And not surprisingly, sometimes we
• 26:40
  also want to be in control of our own destiny. We want to control how
• 26:45
  things happen when they happen. And that's just simply not the way it works, right?
• 26:50
  So this concept of surrendering is: hey, keep showing up, keep keep you know, keep
• 26:55
  working on the inputs, but just completely detach any emotion and any expectation from the
• 27:00
  outcome, the outcome itself.
• 27:02
  This is pretty great. Also to hear a finance guy say, Don't worry about the
• 27:06
  numbers. This is fantastic.
• 27:08
  It I'm not gonna lie, man, it was one of the hardest lessons that I
• 27:12
  had to like train my mind because you know, as finance people here, like we're
• 27:17
  very logic oriented, we're very direct as far as did we hit the goal or
• 27:22
  not? Yes, yes or no, right? Very black and white type of thing. So it's
• 27:27
  in a way counterintuitive, which makes it a little bit harder to digest. But once
• 27:31
  you really adapt to the input philosophy and just go about living your life based
• 27:36
  on your values and not necessarily two outcomes. It's a really freeing way to live
• 27:41
  and it's also an amazing way to just have a blast and you know have
• 27:46
  conversations like this.
• 27:47
  Do your clients share that mindset? Do you have to like coach them into that
• 27:51
  mindset? Are they very KPI driven?
• 27:53
  You know what, it's it's a great question. I think it's a combination of both.
• 27:57
  and I think that the magic of being a CFO advisor is, you know, one
• 28:02
  thing that we don't market, but we tend that comes with the job, so to
• 28:06
  speak, is we're almost acting as a business coach and most of the time, right?
• 28:11
  And a lot of that has to do with meeting them where they are. And
• 28:15
  what that typically means too is we want to have an understanding of, you know,
• 28:20
  what drives them, what is their definition of success. Not my definition of success, Jack,
• 28:24
  but their definition of success, which is tied to their personal goals and their business
• 28:29
  goals, right? And then from there, like the business coach element comes in as keeping
• 28:33
  them accountable, right? Now, a lot of the times there'll be folks that are pretty
• 28:38
  rigid on what those goals are. And you know, the best way for me to
• 28:42
  show up as a CFO advisor is to meet them where they are and guide
• 28:47
  them towards their successful outcome. But there's gonna be some you know handful of clients
• 28:51
  that are actually pretty flexible. And you know, pretty open. So they would tell me,
• 28:56
  hey, Oscar, my goals for my personal side of things are this, this are the
• 29:00
  ones that I have for my business. but hey, I'm also open for like any
• 29:05
  blind spots. And I think a lot of the times that tells me that that
• 29:09
  person is open, that person is pretty coachable. And typically that tends to translate as
• 29:14
  well whenever we're looking at KPIs and we're having those conversations, right? there tends to
• 29:18
  be an an extra element of hey, here are the five KPIs that you've been
• 29:23
  tracking for. you know the past five years but if you want some further insight
• 29:27
  like what if we start looking at this right and honestly those are the best
• 29:32
  conversations because we get into like not a debate but a conversation about stress testing
• 29:36
  different perspectives and that's ultimately how we actually come up with you know the best
• 29:41
  KPIs to track the real drivers right and that's really where it's more of a
• 29:45
  partnership where we're literally like challenging each other and it's also a growth opportunity for
• 29:50
  the both of us right so I think I think it would be to answer
• 29:54
  your question directly, it really depends. But really what we try to do at my
• 29:59
  firm is really meet the client where they are and really let them guide the
• 30:03
  ship as far as what their definition of success and we'll do everything in our
• 30:08
  power to make that a reality.
• 30:10
  So let I got a couple things off of that. So you use the word
• 30:14
  advisor. CFO advisor, which I think is a is a is an accurate terminology for
• 30:18
  what you do. A lot of people throw it around. Not everybody is this true
• 30:22
  CFO advisor. Some people are kind of just controllers or whatever it is, right? But
• 30:26
  you're actually coming in and not you're not saying, Hey, you said these five KPIs
• 30:30
  are important. So here's the measurement, here we go. You're saying, Great, let's start the
• 30:35
  conversation here, but what else? Right, what what's next or what what's really the main
• 30:39
  driver kind of thing? So how do you have that advisor conversation with somebody early
• 30:43
  on that's you know locked in saying, all right, we need we need 10% growth
• 30:47
  in revenue and we need 15% growth in net profit? Do you do you meet
• 30:51
  them where they're at in terms of all right, we're gonna start with those KPIs,
• 30:55
  but then I'm gonna ask a few follow-up questions. Like how does that conversation go?
• 31:00
  There's a right time and place for that. And I would say that the the
• 31:04
  best answer for that, Jack, is probably more an art than it really is a
• 31:09
  science. and again, like a lot of it it also comes from creating trust, right?
• 31:14
  People won't listen to your advice until they actually trust you, right? And trust comes
• 31:19
  in different ways. People, in my opinion, like they just want to know two things.
• 31:24
  Do you actually do you actually give a damn about them as people? Do you
• 31:29
  actually give a damn about their business? And number three, are you actually capable and
• 31:34
  competent in what you do? If the answer to those three questions is yes. It's
• 31:39
  really a matter of when that trust is gonna be unlocked. And then once that
• 31:44
  once that trust is unlocked, then that's when the beauty of like the advice coming
• 31:49
  from the CFO lens comes into play, right? I don't think it would be a
• 31:54
  successful outcome for for any client, for me to or for any fractional CFO to
• 31:58
  really come in and they want to start giving advice. I th you know, because
• 32:03
  that trust element is not earned, right? And and and let's be real. And let's
• 32:08
  be humble. Like there's so many things and so much context behind every business that
• 32:13
  you gotta learn first. So being humble, knowing that every different every business is different,
• 32:18
  right? Being curious. I like to say the analogy of like always be like a
• 32:23
  kid mindset, being creative, being and always being curious about things. That's typically how we
• 32:28
  approach the onboarding, which takes about like 90, 90 days. And then after those 90
• 32:33
  days, that's really an incredible checkpoint way. With the people we're working in, and we're
• 32:38
  able to say, you know what, this is what we learn about the business. What
• 32:43
  are we missing? Right. Once we're able to play things back to them and they
• 32:48
  that signal that we actually get their business, it creates that trust element. It create,
• 32:52
  it positions us as like someone that gives a damn about them, gives a damn
• 32:57
  about their business, but also are competent and knowledgeable in the CFO space, right? And
• 33:02
  that's when those conversations tend to naturally be gravitate more on the advisory side rather
• 33:07
  than. on the pure technical or tactical side of things.
• 33:11
  So there's underlying piece of this too. the folks that you're talking with, your ideal
• 33:16
  client persona, your ICP, it must be somebody who is in it for the long
• 33:21
  haul, because obviously none of this happens overnight. To your point, first 90 days, you
• 33:26
  start figuring some things out. Is the ICP that you look for somebody that is
• 33:31
  very coachable and and wants to be coached?
• 33:34
  One hundred percent. And there's been lessons where, you know, there's there's been times where
• 33:39
  You know, there's been some hard decisions where you just feel that you know, it's
• 33:44
  a it's a great opportunity to serve as a client, but a lot of the
• 33:49
  times it really comes down to values, standards, and coachability, right? And a lot of
• 33:54
  the times, like sometimes that's painful, but if you don't really see yourself aligned that
• 33:59
  that person on the opposite side of the of the room or the opposite side
• 34:04
  of the table is aligned with your values, even though they're gonna pay you like
• 34:09
  You're doing a disservice to yourself and your firm and to actually that client in
• 34:14
  the event that you know that they don't align align with your principles and values
• 34:20
  because it's only going to be a matter of time until that thing explodes and
• 34:25
  then they'll need to like look for somebody else. And that's not fair. That's not
• 34:30
  fair to anybody, right? So one of our one of our values really is transparency
• 34:35
  and honesty above above all things. And I think that you know Business is hugely
• 34:40
  personal, and especially for all these entrepreneurs that we're serving, right? So we really lead
• 34:45
  with a people approach first and really get to know them first as as as
• 34:50
  you know as people before we even start talking about business and potentially coming in
• 34:55
  and helping out.
• 34:57
  One my favorite quotes, be yourself in business, it gets personal.
• 35:01
  Yeah. Couldn't agree more.
• 35:04
  All right, let me hit you with some lightning round scrappy versus sophisticated questions. All
• 35:08
  right, so take me inside the office. How many monitors you got working on the
• 35:12
  desk?
• 35:13
  I gotta wanna, man.
• 35:14
  Just one. Finance guy with only one monitor. Okay.
• 35:17
  This one and very proud about that, Jack.
• 35:20
  That's actually pretty good. Yeah. any business cards currently on the desk? Yeah,
• 35:26
  No business cards.
• 35:27
  I bet I is everything very clean, very right angle, very organized.
• 35:32
  You're putting me in the spot again, Jack, but yeah.
• 35:34
  Yeah.
• 35:35
  Yeah, spot on.
• 35:37
  Nice. Okay. I would ask if there's any cracks on your phone, but there's no
• 35:41
  way there's cracks on your phone right now.
• 35:44
  You'd be surprised there's a little one and it actually
• 35:46
  Ooh.
• 35:47
  happened today in the gym.
• 35:49
  Okay. Well that's that's a pretty that's a same day thing. All right. I don't
• 35:52
  mean to rub it in. I didn't know that. Yeah, I know.
• 35:55
  Thank you, Jack. Thanks for the reminder.
• 36:00
  how do you organize your calendar? Do you block time for client work? Do you
• 36:04
  block time for strategic thinking? Do you let it all fly? How's that work?
• 36:08
  Yeah, it's it's it's constantly an iteration, right? Like we we talked about the operating
• 36:12
  system for bodybuilding and fitness rituals, like it's the same thing for calendaring. One thing
• 36:17
  that I always like to do is I like to play with different frameworks, right?
• 36:22
  And like to test whatever sticks, whatever don't doesn't. what works for me and what
• 36:27
  I started like testing is just keeping it very simple, two, three callers. Back in
• 36:32
  the day, I used to have a a collar for every category that you can
• 36:37
  possibly imagine. So you open my calendar and it was like an umbrella or like
• 36:41
  a rainbow of colors all over the place, right? And that was actually distracting me
• 36:46
  more than it was helping me. so I had to make some some tweaks. I
• 36:51
  really go by green, yellow, red and just go from there. But a couple things
• 36:56
  are aside from those like green, yellow, red, which is the way I, you know,
• 37:01
  go about like categorizing my activities and the type of work that I'm doing. Non-negotiable
• 37:06
  deep work from eight A.M. to ten A.m. in the morning. and First thing in
• 37:10
  the morning's gotta be a workout for sure. I feel like that sets me up
• 37:15
  for for success. But I think everything else after 10 a.m., I tend to keep
• 37:20
  it a little bit more open, especially in in this growth phase and growth trajectory
• 37:25
  that we're at. But I feel like that's the beauty of like just testing around
• 37:30
  different different frameworks and really sticking with what really works and just continue to iterate
• 37:35
  over time as as your as your you know responsibility as a business owner and
• 37:40
  also as a founder increases over time. It's it's an infinite game. So I feel
• 37:44
  like you should also So be playing the infinite game on thinking about how you
• 37:49
  go about your calendar.
• 37:51
  Okay. Okay. Take me inside the inbox. How many emails unread is too many?
• 37:56
  Probably ten.
• 37:57
  Okay, that's pretty good. Pretty pretty good. do email or does your sign off for
• 38:02
  your email end with a saying? Something like seize the day or anything like that?
• 38:07
  It used to. No, it does not.
• 38:10
  Okay. What did it used to be?
• 38:13
  I think it was like the slogan on our on our on our you know
• 38:18
  on our the slogan that we have on our website which is powering the builders
• 38:23
  living the American dream, which it was just like a reminder of like why we're
• 38:28
  doing what we were doing. But yeah, that went away.
• 38:32
  Okay, okay, that's pretty good. do you ever send an email that's only in the
• 38:37
  subject line, nothing in the body?
• 38:39
  Couple of times, yes.
• 38:40
  Okay, all right. let's see. What's your airport personality? Are you grabbing a cocktail before
• 38:46
  the flight? Are you sitting up front? Are you doing the lounge?
• 38:51
  Yeah, well, you're putting me on the spot for the third time again, that and
• 38:54
  you're killing me, but you know, I
• 38:56
  It's almost over, I promise.
• 38:59
  I got y yeah, I mean, I would look at first of all, I would
• 39:04
  look at, you know, the airports and part of the whole experience is like, do
• 39:09
  they actually have a lounge? Do they have like even a a Delta or an
• 39:14
  American Express lounge? Typically I'm kind of like more old school kind of person that
• 39:19
  likes to go into the airports like significantly earlier, like probably two to three hours
• 39:24
  before the flight, get settled in into like the whole atmosphere and get some work
• 39:29
  done. right like sometimes just go to the lounge get some good food back in
• 39:35
  the day in the day used to be a martini but now it's been been
• 39:40
  sober for three years so more on the you know just a place to grab
• 39:45
  a coffee and yeah I don't think there's There's much into that and just getting
• 39:50
  into depending on the trip. If it's a vacation, definitely gonna get in the vacation
• 39:55
  vibe or vacation mode. If it's business, I'll probably be like doing some work somewhere
• 40:00
  in the lounge or somewhere in in the airport.
• 40:04
  This guy's all class, everybody. I'm gonna go a hundred percent sophistication. I love it,
• 40:08
  man. Oscar, thank you so much for coming on, man. I appreciate it. anything you
• 40:12
  want the folks out there to know? Anything you want to promote?
• 40:16
  out of this time, Jack, you have been incredible post. Really excited for you, what
• 40:20
  you're building in and Pineapple. And and again, I really appreciate you having me here.
• 40:25
  Awesome. Thanks so much for coming. Thanks so much for coming out, everybody, and listening
• 40:29
  to me flub that last line. Stay data-driven, everyone.
• 40:32
  Awesome. Thanks everyone.