Latest / Healthy Happy Wise Wealthy / E-Commerce of the Future with Fractional CFO Nate Littlewood

Transcript

E-Commerce of the Future with Fractional CFO Nate Littlewood · Healthy Happy Wise Wealthy

• Mary Meyer [0:02]: Welcome back to Healthy, Happy, Wise, Wealthy. I have with us today Nate Littlewood with Future Ready CFO. Mary Meyer [0:08]: Nate's been doing this for a couple years. He has a background in Wall Street and finances and, uh, entrepreneurship, so I'm excited to have you on. And before we start, Nate, I have a podcast sponsor, Mindiii, M-I-N-D-I-I-I, which is an IT company in India. They got 50 people working there doing the whole full stack everything with, uh, data, data processing and building hardware and whatever you might need for that. Mary Meyer [0:32]: So I wanna jump in with you and say, so Future Ready CFO is a fractional CFO service. Uh, first of all, tell us what that means. What is a fractional CFO? Nate Littlewood [0:45]: Yeah, absolutely. Good question. And, uh, thanks for having me today, Mary. Mary Meyer [0:48]: You're welcome. Nate Littlewood [0:48]: So fractional basically just means that I spread my time over a number of different, uh, founders/companies. And the reason for that is that the clients that I work with are not large enough businesses yet to really need the services of someone like me full-time. Nate Littlewood [1:05]: Um, the CFO parts should be pretty obvious. It's, you know, I basically have a focus on, uh, finance strategy and, and helping these folks basically figure out how to profitably scale their businesses. Um, so yeah, that's- Mary Meyer [1:19]: Yeah Nate Littlewood [1:19]: ... what I do. Mary Meyer [1:21]: Yeah. And I, I was telling you before we started, I moved to Reno, got involved in the entrepreneur- Nate Littlewood [1:26]: Uh-huh Mary Meyer [1:26]: ... entrepreneurship community, and I know this is, this is a huge thing, a benefit- Nate Littlewood [1:30]: Yeah Mary Meyer [1:30]: ... to people starting out, uh, when- Nate Littlewood [1:32]: Mm-hmm Mary Meyer [1:32]: ... you know, you can't hire full-time in the, you know, C-suite people, but you need the wisdom from it. Nate Littlewood [1:38]: Yep. Mm-hmm. Mary Meyer [1:38]: And the managing of money as you're starting out a business is probably the scariest part 'cause, uh, you know, we need, we all need money. So- Nate Littlewood [1:47]: Mm-hmm Mary Meyer [1:47]: ... uh, very, very important. Uh, what led you to do this, to make the change? 'Cause you've been doing it for a couple years now. Nate Littlewood [1:55]: Yeah, correct. So I started a couple of years back. Um, I guess the easiest way to kind of understand my journey into what I'm doing now is to kind of go back, backwards chronologically. Immediately before this, I spent a year or two as the lead mentor for a New York City-based accelerator program called Food Future Co. Uh, we basically- Mary Meyer [2:16]: Okay Nate Littlewood [2:17]: ... specialized in working with early stage founders in the food, beverage, and ag tech spaces to raise their first, uh, institutional investment rounds. Uh, that was honestly my first ever foray into the world of like coaching and, and mentorship, and I got into it off the back of about six years of running my own, uh, e-commerce business, which we'd bootstrapped from a small Kickstarter campaign into a, a seven-figure company. Nate Littlewood [2:45]: Um, learned a hell of a lot about entrepreneurship in the, you know, CEO and co-founder role. Mary Meyer [2:51]: Mm-hmm. Nate Littlewood [2:52]: And, uh, I guess the time spent with the accelerator really opened my eyes to the whole world of, you know, coaching and ad- advisory, which candidly I hadn't really thought too much about as a career path at- Nate Littlewood [3:04]: Mm Nate Littlewood [3:04]: ... at that point. But, you know, I was working with these founders and, you know, in these mentorship sessions and, you know, we'd be breaking down some sort of problem that they had in their company. It could be operation, supply chain, marketing related, whatever. Anyway, inevitably at the end of these conversations, we'd get to the point where it was time to talk about solutions and, you know, how to move forward, what should, should we do about this situation. Nate Littlewood [3:29]: And I'd often ask a question, something along the lines of, "Hey, tell me a little bit about your finances. Nate Littlewood [3:34]: You know, what can we afford to do here? Like, what does your cashflow look like? Um, how much cash have you got?" And I would just get these, you know, blank faces. And I thought, "This just doesn't make sense," that you have, you know, these smart, capable, intelligent, motivated, um, you know, business owners and operators here who are unable to kind of access all of the help and resources that they need because they're not fluent in the language of finance. Nate Littlewood [4:04]: Like, they can't, they, they haven't learned how to talk numbers. And the reality is a bit, uh, is as a business owner, if you want or need to be able to access help from other people, and you very commonly need to access help from capital providers, right? Nate Littlewood [4:20]: Whether it's debt, equity, both, you know, then you need to be able to talk their language, right? Mary Meyer [4:25]: Yeah. Nate Littlewood [4:25]: If you want to ask for their help. And I could just see these, you know, recurring patterns of these founders not being able to access and tap into all of the help that they needed because they weren't fluent in finance, which rightly or wrongly is kind of the language of the business world. Mary Meyer [4:43]: Mm-hmm. Nate Littlewood [4:43]: And so that was kind of the impetus or spark for me to start exploring what has now become Future Ready CFO. Nate Littlewood [4:50]: Um, but I should add that for about a decade before this, uh, and, you know, I've been in the e-commerce startup world for about 10 years now, but for a decade before that, uh, I worked on Wall Street as an investment bank. Uh, started off in Australia, um, couple years in Canada, and moved down here to New York in 2013. Nate Littlewood [5:09]: So yeah, really what I'm doing now as a fractional CFO is combining, um, 10 years or so working on Wall Street, you know, high-end finance with 10 years or so on the ground, um, in the e-commerce and startup space. Mary Meyer [5:24]: Yeah, that's super valuable. And I know what's coming to mind is actually a guest that I had on here, uh, 2B Glass, and they have- Mary Meyer [5:33]: Uh-huh Mary Meyer [5:33]: ... they had some viral fame making, they make glass pumpkins. Um, but I- Nate Littlewood [5:37]: Okay Mary Meyer [5:37]: ... went, I went to go see them. And so this is an example to me of, of entrepreneurship because, you know- Nate Littlewood [5:44]: Mm Mary Meyer [5:44]: ... in their 20s, they're working at a glass factory, they're learning a cr- a trade. Nate Littlewood [5:49]: Mm-hmm. Mary Meyer [5:49]: And they're getting really good at it. So how do you put every piece involved in business in that so now it's your business, so you have your space? And it's something I- Nate Littlewood [5:59]: Mm Mary Meyer [5:59]: ... think we talk about and we dream about, and I hear people talking about it, dreaming about it, who probably have-A couple really good skill sets to start. Nate Littlewood [6:09]: Mm-hmm. Mary Meyer [6:09]: Uh, but fi- if they don't have a... You know, no one's gonna go out there and get a business degree, a finance degree, learn a, learn a trade, figure out how to make a pr- I mean, like, it's too much. It's too much to know- Mary Meyer [6:21]: Yeah Mary Meyer [6:21]: ... everything. Nate Littlewood [6:22]: Yep. Mary Meyer [6:22]: And so, you know, the, the, the knowledge that, uh, that, you know, you bring, especially with finances, and I've had some finance people on- Nate Littlewood [6:30]: Mm Mary Meyer [6:30]: ... in different areas of this, but, uh, managing the, the budget is, is so much of that. And- Nate Littlewood [6:37]: Yeah Mary Meyer [6:37]: ... in particular why I think of, of, of these people is that, um, he said he just constantly was watching entrepreneurship stuff on YouTube. Nate Littlewood [6:47]: Right. Mary Meyer [6:47]: And just like- Nate Littlewood [6:47]: Mm-hmm Mary Meyer [6:48]: ... self-learning, self-learning, self-learning. Nate Littlewood [6:50]: Mm-hmm. Mary Meyer [6:50]: And that self-learning space is, um, you're gonna need to do it in the, in the- Nate Littlewood [6:55]: Yeah Mary Meyer [6:55]: ... entrepreneurship, uh, world for sure. And, um, money seems to be the, the big thing. Nate Littlewood [7:01]: Yeah. Mary Meyer [7:01]: So, um, just let's go and, uh, first of all, um, an accelerator program, I wanted to ask you about that. We have an ex- And so for people who are starting out, uh, just- Nate Littlewood [7:13]: Mm-hmm Mary Meyer [7:13]: ... the knowledge that such a thing exists, can you explain what it is and, like, when you would look into it, why you would do it if you're an entrepreneur- Mary Meyer [7:21]: Yeah Mary Meyer [7:21]: ... wanting to start? Nate Littlewood [7:23]: Yep. So accelerator programs take a lot of different forms. Um, some of the better known ones out there would be names like, you know, Y Combinator. That's one of the, you know, premier ones. Uh, but there's plenty of others. Um, they're all gonna have slightly different versions of the model and, and how they work, but what you usually see is, say, two to six months of intensive work with a team of mentors, advisors, and, and experts, and these people will be from, you know, all different disciplines, right? Nate Littlewood [7:58]: So you'll commonly have, uh, you know, some marketing experts, some branding experts, and these could be either experienced, uh, founders, or they might be agency owners who just specialize in that, you know, one particular discipline or domain. Mary Meyer [8:11]: Mm. Nate Littlewood [8:12]: Uh, you'll have operations people, you'll have product people. Um, you know, I kinda came at it as a bit of a, a generalist founder, but obviously with an incl- inclination towards finance and numbers. Nate Littlewood [8:23]: And what you get is an opportunity to work with these people and to problem solve with these people. You know, whatever challenges it is that your business is, is facing, they'll, you know, sit down with you usually for an hour a week and, you know, you can talk through these problems and, and unpack things. Now, it's usually not for free. There are some of these programs that, um, have grants and subsidies and some type of funding, and they are able to provide these services for free. Mary Meyer [8:51]: Mm-hmm. Nate Littlewood [8:51]: But commonly what you'll need to do to get into one of these programs is actually provide or give them some equity. So they actually come onto your cap table, um, your capitalization table. Nate Littlewood [9:05]: Um, how much they take depends very much on the program, um, but I would say maybe 4 to 8% equity is a pretty common range. And you often... You know, you give them equity. Sometimes they'll give you some money. Um, if they do give you money, then the implied valuation that they're giving you is usually very, very low because they will say, "Okay, part of what you're getting here is not just, you know, this small amount of cash that we might be giving you, but you're also getting access to this bench of mentors and advisors for, you know, three to six months," whatever it is. Nate Littlewood [9:39]: So that's essentially how, how it goes. Uh, the one that I worked with, uh, specialized in the food, beverage, and ag tech space, and we basically focused on getting these businesses ready for raising their first round of institutional investment, whether that was, you know, an angel or VC round. Um, so if you are interested in these, then you definitely need to do your research. Nate Littlewood [10:04]: Um, there's so, so many of them, and really the quality of the program and what you're gonna get out of it is very much a function of who the mentors and advisors that they have. So you need to look into the people that you're gonna be working with. Look at their backgrounds, look at their profiles, look them up on LinkedIn, look at what their network and connection looks like, um, because it's essentially, you know, their time and mental energy that you're buying into, if you will. Nate Littlewood [10:30]: Um- Mary Meyer [10:30]: Yeah Nate Littlewood [10:30]: ... and it's a good, good, good fit if you're a business that, you know, or a business owner that feels like you might need that support and need a bit of a helping hand just bumping things along and getting things to the next level. But they're by no means essential, right? Like, plenty of founders get through, uh, get through their journeys without them. Nate Littlewood [10:48]: Um- Mary Meyer [10:49]: Right Nate Littlewood [10:49]: ... but if you feel like you might need a hand, then it could be worth looking into. Mary Meyer [10:53]: That's a very good overview. I appreciate that. Um- Nate Littlewood [10:55]: Mm-hmm Mary Meyer [10:56]: ... so do your research is a lot of what I'm hearing. Nate Littlewood [10:59]: Yeah, absolutely. Mary Meyer [11:00]: It feels a little, it feels a little Shark Tank-like from how you described it. Nate Littlewood [11:04]: A little, yeah. Um, uh, you might- Mary Meyer [11:07]: Board of, board of advisors to help you. Nate Littlewood [11:10]: Yeah, yeah, and, and, you know, you might be lucky enough to find some big investors in, in the mentorship pool, but, um, yeah, um, that would be unusual. Nate Littlewood [11:19]: Um, what does happen quite often, though, is that people from these accelerator programs will... You know, you'll strike up a friendship, or you'll, you know, get close to one or two of them, right? Mary Meyer [11:31]: Mm. Nate Littlewood [11:31]: And you might then negotiate some, you know, enduring relationship with them that, that goes beyond the program itself. So you might invite them to be on your board of directors, or you might invite them to be a formal, you know, mentor and advisor over a multi-year period. Um- Nate Littlewood [11:47]: Right Nate Littlewood [11:47]: ... if you hit it off with one of those individuals. You don't, certainly don't have to do that, but if you wanted to do that, that's typically, you know, negotiated on a one-to-one basis. Mary Meyer [11:56]: Yeah, and I would think that the main thing with any of this is making sure that you're taking advice from people who have really done the walk and had the experience. Mary Meyer [12:06]: So there's a, you know, there's a lot of, lot of people in the space. Can you tell me- Mary Meyer [12:11]: ... like, what do you see, uh, are common mistakes-... Mary Meyer [12:15]: uh, people make as they're getting started, uh, in a business with money- Mary Meyer [12:21]: ... and with their, the finances of the business. Nate Littlewood [12:24]: Yeah. Well, there's a lot. Um, I, as I think you know, host a, host a podcast as well, and I remember one of the first guests that I ever had on my show was a founder, um, of a business called Baronfig. His name's, uh, Joey Cafone. And one of my favorite quotes from my entire podcast so far is when Joey said to me, "You know what, Nate? Nate Littlewood [12:48]: It's a lot easier to build a business in a spreadsheet than it is in real life." And I thought that just summed things up so perfectly and so- Nate Littlewood [12:58]: ... obviously. Mary Meyer [12:59]: Yeah. Nate Littlewood [13:00]: Yet it's something that so many founders and business owners just overlook, right? Nate Littlewood [13:06]: It can take you as little as half an hour to plug in some assumptions about, you know, your revenue, your average order value, um, how much of, you know, what the customer pays in revenue are you actually going to receive in terms of disbursements, 'cause there's often some fees and discounts and coupons and so forth involved. Then once you've received that revenue, think through, "Okay, how much is it actually gonna cost me to d- deliver this product and service? Nate Littlewood [13:32]: Is there shipping? Is there fulfillment? Is there a cost of goods sold," right? Um, "Am I gonna have to pay for marketing and customer acquisition?" I mean, with, you know, half an hour or, you know, maybe a little bit of help and support from someone who's done this before- Nate Littlewood [13:46]: ... it's incredibly easy to put together a rough financial picture of what this business is actually gonna look like. Mary Meyer [13:53]: Yeah. Nate Littlewood [13:54]: And if you've been through that exercise and that, you know, financial projection or that financial picture of the future that you have built in your spreadsheet doesn't excite you, doesn't interest you, is not compelling, then don't go wasting two or three of your, two or three years of your life building that business, right? Um, either change the product, figure out a different industry, figure out a, you know, different way to price it or produce it. Nate Littlewood [14:19]: Whatever it is you have to do. But, like, um, I think a lot of, uh, business owners and operators have this fear and apprehension around finance, right? "It's scary." Nate Littlewood [14:31]: "I don't understand this stuff." And, you know, a, a lot of business owners fall into the trap of having this denial-type relationship with their finances, and this is something I see a lot with m- mission-led and purpose-led founders. And my, my theory on this, I'd, I'd love to hear your thoughts on it as well, Mary, but my theory on this is it's, uh, a, a lot of it's driven by a cognitive, a, a concept called cognitive dissonance, which is basically when us humans cannot hold two conflicting stories in our brain at the same time, right? Nate Littlewood [15:06]: I can't say, uh, "Hey, I'm a nice person, but I also kill puppies," right? One of those things has to, has to not be true. And- Mary Meyer [15:14]: Yeah Nate Littlewood [15:15]: ... where I'm going with this and how it relates to, to the world of entrepreneurship and founders is, you know, we like to tell our family and friends that we've got this great business, we've got this amazing product, our customers love us, and we're doing these am- you know, wonderful things in the world. But sometimes we can fall into a situation where the finances and the numbers are actually telling quite a conflicting story. And if the finances could talk, they might say, "Eh, you kind of suck right now and not really doing that well." And so because it's uncomfortable to have these two conflicting narratives at the same time, we choose to isolate or distance ourselves from one of them. Nate Littlewood [15:51]: The problem with that is the financial story and the financial numbers are gonna continue to exist whether or not we're paying attention to them as owner/operators. Nate Littlewood [16:00]: And so what I, uh, see after people have kind of, you know, gotten through that phase is we often see founders get into what I call the overwhelm phase. This is where they've made an attempt to understand their finances, but they've done so without help, they've done so without support, and, you know, it's just gotten overwhelming and scary and it's like, "Eh, okay. Nate Littlewood [16:24]: I still don't get it." Nate Littlewood [16:26]: And then- Nate Littlewood [16:26]: Right Nate Littlewood [16:26]: ... a lot of the time they go back to square one, unfortunately. The next phase is what I call the intrigue phase, and this is where we start to kind of look over the fence and go, "Huh, there's some interesting stuff in there. I, I don't understand it all yet, but I probably should." Um, you know, EBITDA ratio. What does that mean? Gross profit margin. Huh, that sounds interesting. Nate Littlewood [16:47]: And, you know, we start to become curious about the numbers. But the fourth and final phase where we're really wanting to get to is what I call the enlightenment phase, and this is where the penny drops. This is where we have the aha moments, and this is where we can finally start to understand the stories and messages that these financial statements are giving us. And what happens when we get there is our life actually gets a lot easier as business owners and operators, because the financial statements will tell you more than gut instinct and intuition is able to do. Nate Littlewood [17:21]: It will give you a higher level of resolution about what is and is not working in your company, right? It will tell you which geographies or, you know, customer segments are profitable versus not. It will tell you which types of customer acquisition methods, whether it's Meta, Google, something else, are making you money and where you have a good margin and which not. It will tell you which parts of your product catalog are profitable and which ones are not. Nate Littlewood [17:45]: It will tell you if your overhead's too high, if your marketing's inefficient, right? We can start to get all of these insights into the performance of our business, the efficiency of the company that we're running, that allow us to become more intentional and deliberate about how- Nate Littlewood [18:01]: ... we focus our time and attention. Uh, a, a dynamic that basically every founder and, and business owner deals with is, is overwhelm, right? Like, we have too many things to do, right? A list, to-do list is this long, there's this many hours in the day. Nate Littlewood [18:14]: We cannot do it all. Nate Littlewood [18:15]: So we need some process for determining what do we focus on-And what do we ignore? What do we let slip? And I will argue that financial statement analysis is a very, very powerful way to do that. I mean, it can help highlight and flag the things that need time and attention, and it can also tell you the things that are going fine and do not need your time and attention. Nate Littlewood [18:39]: And with that insight and that clarity, it just makes your life so much easier as a business owner and an operator. Mary Meyer [18:46]: Yeah. So this is what you help people with, the fi- say it, the financial- Nate Littlewood [18:50]: Exactly, yeah Mary Meyer [18:51]: ... assessment statement? Is that what you put? What did you say again? Nate Littlewood [18:54]: Uh, I think I said financial statement analysis. So- Mary Meyer [18:58]: Financial statement analysis. Okay. Nate Littlewood [19:00]: Yeah. So that's- Nate Littlewood [19:01]: Okay Nate Littlewood [19:01]: ... that's a big part of it. Um, where I spend more of my time though, rather than, you know, backward-looking analysis, is actually forward-looking analysis. Mary Meyer [19:11]: Okay. Nate Littlewood [19:11]: Right? So the name of the company, Future Ready CFO, is- is kind of a nod to the fact that we wanna be ready for the future. We want to be able to anticipate and understand the things that are coming at us down the pipeline. Mary Meyer [19:26]: Mm. Nate Littlewood [19:26]: And for a business owner, this might mean, you know, launching on TikTok Shop. It could mean hiring a new agency, launching a new product line, opening up a new sales channel, like whatever. Nate Littlewood [19:36]: The- the reality of, for most business owners is we can't do all of it. Okay? You might have 10, 20, 30 different ideas, but there are not enough hours in the day or people on your team to be able to do everything. And what I help founders do is basically figure out which of these priorities are worth pursuing and which ones should we ignore. Nate Littlewood [19:59]: Um, we can talk more about some of the methods that are used to do that, but what I'm trying to do is understand their financial goals, whether it's an exit, whether it's building a lifestyle business- Nate Littlewood [20:10]: Mm Nate Littlewood [20:10]: ... whether it's paying themselves $200,000 a year. Like, whatever your financial goals are, we understand them, work backwards, and dev- develop and build a custom strategy that is going to give us the most favorable combination of risk and, um, reward so that we are most likely to achieve those financial goals. Nate Littlewood [20:31]: Does that, does that make sense? Mary Meyer [20:32]: Yeah. That's great. Uh, I, I would love to back up just a second because I know just working with business owners I've done the last couple years, there is a confusion between the different people in the financial space they'll need. Mary Meyer [20:45]: As an example- Nate Littlewood [20:46]: Mm-hmm Mary Meyer [20:46]: ... a bookkeeper is not a tax person. So, you know- Nate Littlewood [20:50]: Yep Mary Meyer [20:50]: ... you need a bookkeeper, you need a tax person. If you're getting money, uh, you might have the lender who's also looking at different things. Uh, then- Nate Littlewood [20:57]: Mm-hmm Mary Meyer [20:57]: ... you need someone who's managing your wealth, like a wealth manager, and then what you do is a different, you know, the s- you know, the CFO, the, you know, uh, so the C-suite person who's guiding and directing your business decisions is kinda how I- Nate Littlewood [21:12]: Yeah Mary Meyer [21:12]: ... would say that. How would you, how would you phrase, like, do you ever have those conversations with people about all the different levels of, of money management people that- Nate Littlewood [21:21]: Yeah Mary Meyer [21:21]: ... you would need? Nate Littlewood [21:23]: Yeah, yeah. Of course. Absolutely. So let's kind of build up on this and- Mary Meyer [21:28]: Okay Nate Littlewood [21:28]: ... think through what the needs are as you go from a very, very small business into a, you know, bigger, larger, more mature, more sophisticated business. Mary Meyer [21:39]: Okay. Nate Littlewood [21:40]: So, uh, what... When you're just starting out, you're going to have, uh, a need for an accountant most likely, right? Mary Meyer [21:48]: Mm. Nate Littlewood [21:48]: All businesses, uh, need to file tax returns, so you are going to need to engage the services of, of an accountant most likely, um, if you want to stay compliant and if you want to avoid fines from the IRS. Nate Littlewood [22:01]: Now, the most basic l- way to do this would just be to give the accountant your numbers once a year, give them your books once a year. They will fill out the, the paperwork for you. They'll file the return. And, you know, maybe you only really talk to this person once a year, and it might cost, I don't know, 1 to $3,000 to, to get this done. The next step would be a bookkeeper. Nate Littlewood [22:23]: Uh, and what a bookkeeper does is help you essentially organize the books and put the transactions in the right buckets, right? So they're looking at your bank feed. They're looking at your sales records. They're looking at your cost of goods sold, and they're essentially looking backwards and helping you construct accurate financial statements, right? So when it sees a payment to this agency, it knows that it's marketing spend in the month of April, therefore we need to put it in, you know, this category over here. Nate Littlewood [22:52]: So bookkeepers essentially help us categorize and organize our historical information. There's obviously a bit more than an accountant can do than just tax return, tax returns. They can also help with sales tax. Nate Littlewood [23:04]: They can help with, um, things like QSBS. They can help with all sorts of other, you know, regulatory and compliance type issues. Nate Littlewood [23:12]: Uh, if you engage your accountant throughout the year, they might also be able to help you with tax minimization, right? There's certain, you know, things that you can do throughout the year that could lessen your tax liability come the end of the year. A lot of small business owners don't bother with that, but once you get to a certain size, it can be worth having, you know, check-ins with your accountant at least every three to six months just to let them know what's going on, you know, how you're spending money, what are the projects you're looking at, and they may be able to give you some advice about how to minimize your tax return at the end of the year. Nate Littlewood [23:48]: The next, uh, role that you might come across is what we call a controller. Mary Meyer [23:53]: Okay. Nate Littlewood [23:53]: Um, and this is a person who's usually responsible for basically, you know, managing the paper flow of money and throughout the company. So they'll be handling things like, you know, accounts payable, accounts receivable, um, you know, payments to your payroll provider, whoever that might be. They're basically, you know, the train conductor and making sure that money's coming in and out of, um, the company when and as it should.The fourth role, and this is what I specialize in, is, um, kind of financial advisory. Nate Littlewood [24:26]: And the big difference between everything I've described thus far and what I do is everyone else is basically looking backwards, right? They're essentially doing some version of managing, explaining, categorizing, or, you know, organizing our, our historical data. Mary Meyer [24:43]: Mm-hmm. Nate Littlewood [24:43]: What I specialize in is looking the other way. So instead of looking backwards, I'm trying to look forwards. Nate Littlewood [24:48]: And the analogy that I like to give is when you're in this, the driver's seat as a business owner and operator, you're hurtling down the, the freeway at 100 miles an hour, sometimes faster, right? Things are moving really, really fast. Mary Meyer [25:03]: Yeah. Nate Littlewood [25:04]: And often there's obstacles on our road. It could be a pothole, could be a pedestrian, could be a fallen tree, but there's obstacles on the road. And what I'm trying to do and help founders with is get as much visibility on those obstacles as we possibly can, right? If I can tell you that there's a pothole in our lane three miles ahead, you're gonna have plenty of time to put your indicator on, look over your shoulder, gently swerve, move into the other lane. Nate Littlewood [25:33]: And that might mean trimming your overheads, running a sale or promotion, uh, investing in this, taking out a loan, right? These are some of the things- Mary Meyer [25:41]: Mm-hmm Nate Littlewood [25:41]: ... that you can do with the benefit of time- Mary Meyer [25:44]: Right Nate Littlewood [25:44]: ... and when you know that this pothole is coming up. Contrast that to if you didn't have someone like me looking that far ahead, you might only see the pothole when it's 50 yards out, right? And it's like, "Oh, wow, it's right there." And you have two choices at that point. You can either hit the pothole and deal with the damage and repercussions of, you know, whatever's gonna happen to your car. Nate Littlewood [26:09]: Right. Nate Littlewood [26:09]: Or you can dramatically swerve into the other lane at the last minute and make a, uh, you know, a, a sh- sharp change, which may or not be helpful. It may or may not cause other damage. There could be another car there, and you might bang into that if you swerve too quickly. So really what the finance function is about is helping business owners get more resolution and more clarity into the things that are potentially on the road in front of them, and then working with them to respond to that, and working with them to make better decisions so that we're as prepared as we possibly can be before we approach that obstacle. Nate Littlewood [26:44]: Does that make sense? Mary Meyer [26:45]: Absolutely. Yeah, absolutely. And, you know, I think I've had business people on as, you know, at every level talking about how, "Oh, uh, uh there's a financial thing that came up, and I wasn't prepared for it. I wasn't expecting it." Um, basically- Mary Meyer [27:02]: ... you know, the things that you're talking about is very, very common from what I can hear and see, um- Nate Littlewood [27:08]: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm Mary Meyer [27:08]: ... because there's so many different inputs of things that you need to be doing and spending money on, and the money- Nate Littlewood [27:14]: Yeah Mary Meyer [27:14]: ... can go out so fast. Uh, and y- that manage- that managing the money coming in, money going out is, is, is not for the faint of heart, that's for sure. Mary Meyer [27:23]: Um- Nate Littlewood [27:24]: Yeah, yeah. Mary Meyer [27:24]: Yeah. At what point do you think is the right time for, for a business owner, entrepreneur to, to work with you? Nate Littlewood [27:34]: Yeah. Mary Meyer [27:34]: Is there a certain point? Nate Littlewood [27:35]: Um, absolutely. So, uh, I guess first thing I'd say is that you're probably gonna need a bookkeeper and accountant before you need someone like me. Um- Mary Meyer [27:45]: Mm-hmm Nate Littlewood [27:46]: ... if you don't have them and if you don't have your historical numbers clean and organized and, you know, taken care of, it's difficult, nigh on impossible for someone like me to do my job, right? Mary Meyer [27:57]: Right. Nate Littlewood [27:58]: I rely on there being an accurate record, um, and clean financial data to tell me what's going on now in order to be able to anticipate what might happen in the future, right? So I need to kinda know what sorta car we're driving before I can give you advice on how to navigate, you know, the obstacles that are ahead of us. Um, to address your question though, there's, uh, two, let's say three different frameworks that I would offer to help founders think through when and if they might be ready to work with someone on the finance side. Nate Littlewood [28:32]: Number one, I often say to people that you should be post-product market fit. Nate Littlewood [28:38]: In other words, you have gotten to the other side of this magical stage called product market fit. We'll talk a little bit more about what that means, but- Mary Meyer [28:45]: Okay Nate Littlewood [28:46]: ... um, essentially it's the point in a business journey where we know that we are solving a real customer problem, and we have established some scalable and repeatable systems and processes for bringing customers into our ecosystem, our company, right? If we haven't gotten to that stage, then I will argue that your most important function and role as a business owner is to find product market fit and to get to that point, which means that you should be spending every dollar and cent that you have accet- have access to to talking to customers, sales, marketing, trying out new sales experiments, figuring out new messaging, doing whatever you have to do to get this product into the customer's hands. Nate Littlewood [29:36]: Unfortunately, there is no amount of financial wizardry that can solve for a product that people don't wanna buy. Mary Meyer [29:45]: Hmm. Nate Littlewood [29:46]: If the market doesn't want your product and people don't wanna pay money for it and you can't sell it to people, I'm sorry, like me, neither me nor any other CFO is gonna be able to help you. So you need to have gotten past that point before it makes sense to engage someone like me. Mary Meyer [30:03]: Yeah. Nate Littlewood [30:04]: The next, next framework I'd offer is about the number and complexity of finance-related decisions that you have to make. So you t- touched on this concept, uh, a, a couple of times al- already, Mary, in, in your, um, in your words just now. But-As a business owner and operator, one way to kinda think about your role is basically as an investment manager, right? Nate Littlewood [30:29]: What I mean by that is you are sourcing, um, time and capital from either capital providers or employees or agencies or people, and there's a lot of places that you can source these things from, right? You can source capital from debt, from equity. Nate Littlewood [30:45]: You could get grants. You could... A great way to source capital is by selling stuff to customers in the form of revenue, okay? Mary Meyer [30:51]: Mm-hmm. Nate Littlewood [30:52]: But you can also source capital from inventory, accounts receivable, accounts payable, um, partnerships. You know, there's a lot of ways that you could source money, right? Mary Meyer [31:01]: Right. Nate Littlewood [31:02]: Then you have the job of figuring out what to do with that money, right? Do we hire people? Nate Littlewood [31:07]: Do we develop new products? Do we buy inventory? Do we buy ads? Do we hire an agency? Do we open up a new sales channel, right? Now, where I'm going with this is that the more complicated your set of decisions on each of these axes, I think the more value you will get from a CFO. Nate Littlewood [31:26]: 'Cause the CFO is gonna help you evaluate all of these different places and opportunities in terms of where you can get capital, and they'll also give you an opinion on what you should do with it, like, how should we actually be investing it? And I've had... Nate Littlewood [31:41]: You know, just to give you a couple of stories here. I, um, have had a, a couple of very uh, different clients over the last couple years. One was, uh, a woman who was running a, a beauty brand and salon. So she had a physical space, but she was also s- running an e-commerce business, like selling products. Mary Meyer [31:59]: Mm-hmm. Yeah. Nate Littlewood [32:00]: And she was doing, you know, well less than a million dollars, but very, very healthy margins. But she had a huge number of decisions to make about, you know, getting debt. She was thinking about, um, bringing on some investors, and then she was also thinking about expanding her salon business and should she rent a new space. If she was gonna do it, like, how should she break up the space? What types of seats? Should they be a, you know, this type of professional or that type of professional? Nate Littlewood [32:23]: Like, what are the people that we should ha- have here? Or, um, you know, should we outsource the e-commerce bit? Should we get a co-packer? Should we get someone else to ship, uh, boxes for us, so forth. Anyway, she had loads and loads of complicated decisions because she had all of these different options and choices about how to grow her company. And I felt, at least, uh, from my perspective, I was able to add a lot of value there because we had a lot of difficult decisions to unpack. Nate Littlewood [32:50]: And like I said, she was doing, you know, well below a million dollars in revenue. I had this other client who I did some work with, um, uh, maybe a year or two back, and it was project-based work. I did talk to him about the possibility of an ongoing, you know, retainer relationship, but we came to the realization that his decision set was actually really, really simple. Nate Littlewood [33:12]: This guy had two products. He had, you know... Uh, I think he was doing about 15 million a year in sales, so way more revenue than, you know, the first one. Nate Littlewood [33:21]: Um, but it was very, very obvious where his capital was gonna come from. It was gonna come from selling products profitably to customers, right? Like, he'd figured out how to do that. It was also very, very obvious what he was gonna do with that capital when he got it. He was gonna buy more ads and more inventory, and he was just gonna keep, keep going doing that, and that was working very well for him. Mary Meyer [33:44]: Yeah. Nate Littlewood [33:44]: And so we kinda came to the realization that he didn't really need, need me, even though he was doing 20 or 30 times more revenue than the first person. So again, I think the takeaway here is look at and think about the number and complexity of decisions that you have to make in terms of where capital's coming from and what you're doing with that capital, okay? Nate Littlewood [34:05]: So that's framework two. I promised you three, so this is the third and final. Mary Meyer [34:09]: Okay. Nate Littlewood [34:09]: Is to just think about the opportunity cost of your time, right? As business owners, human beings, we're not good at everything. Mary Meyer [34:21]: Right. Nate Littlewood [34:21]: There are parts of this journey that hopefully you excel at. It could be product. It could be sales, could be marketing, could be design. I don't know. Nate Littlewood [34:30]: Um, but time spent in a discipline or domain that is not your zone of genius and is not your area of expertise means that it's time that i- is, is taking away from the thing that you do best, right? If you are a creative genius, and you're amazing at products, and you can add thousands of dollars' worth of value to your business every time you sit down and focus on the thing that you're really good at, then for the love of God, don't spend your time dabbling around with spreadsheets and, and finances because it's, it's just not you. Nate Littlewood [35:05]: Like, pay someone. Mary Meyer [35:06]: Yeah. Nate Littlewood [35:06]: You can get someone else to do that for less than $1,000 an hour. Get someone who specializes in it to do that other thing that you're not good at so that you can spend more time doing the thing that you excel at. Because if you can put yourself in a situation where you're set up to excel, and you can work in your zone of genius, you're g- gonna add a lot more value to your own company, right? Nate Littlewood [35:29]: So what we're really talking about here in this third, third framework is just have a s- level of self-awareness to understand where and how you actually add value to your own business and be able to... And this doesn't just a- apply to finance, by the way. Nate Littlewood [35:43]: I mean, this applies to every discipline and domain. But, like, understand what you do, what you do well, how you add value, and be open to outsourcing, delegating, and offloading the stuff that you don't. Mary Meyer [35:54]: Yeah. No, that's, that's very good advice. And I do, I honestly think there's so few, and maybe I'm, maybe I'm exaggerating this, but entrepreneurs who love to- a spreadsheet. It just seems like- Mary Meyer [36:08]: ... I'm, I'm a creative entrepreneur, and we have to get, uh, married in a way to a, to something- Mary Meyer [36:15]: ... with finances to... 'Cause the finance, I would, I would call that the grounding, right? You gotta stay grounded. Mary Meyer [36:20]: Um- Mary Meyer [36:21]: ... but we, we stay in a place, talking about me too, of, of-... Mary Meyer [36:25]: possibility. Like, let's- Mary Meyer [36:28]: ... the possibilities are endless. This is, you know, and so that gets kinda light and airy, and then the finances is kinda the grounding. Uh, I don't know if I've ever- Nate Littlewood [36:35]: Yeah Mary Meyer [36:35]: ... made that analogy before, but I think that's real. Um- Nate Littlewood [36:38]: Yeah Mary Meyer [36:38]: ... and so you, you need a little bit of both, 'cause you need a visionary, this is, you know, the possibilities are so vast, we could do this and this and this and this mindset to- Nate Littlewood [36:48]: Yeah Mary Meyer [36:48]: ... be an entrepreneur. Uh, but if it's, uh, there could be so many, uh, potholes, as you call them, of reasons why- Nate Littlewood [36:56]: Yeah Mary Meyer [36:56]: ... that, that idea might be a good idea if you do it the right way. But if you just kind of- Mary Meyer [37:02]: ... um, go for it, which is my personality, uh- Mary Meyer [37:06]: ... then that's pro- that could be really a disaster. Nate Littlewood [37:10]: Yeah, yeah. Mary Meyer [37:11]: Thoughts on, thoughts on that? Nate Littlewood [37:13]: Just to... Yeah. Well, just to, to riff off that a little bit, Mary, and I 100% agree what you said, but I would frame finances a little bit differently in that- Nate Littlewood [37:22]: Okay Nate Littlewood [37:22]: ... it is the ultimate scorecard of how efficiently your business works, right? Every bi- business is providing or selling a solution to someone else's problem. Nate Littlewood [37:36]: Could be that, you know, I need a T-shirt and I don't wanna walk around naked, or it could be that I'm hungry and, you know, I want a snack for afternoon tea, right? Like, they're- Nate Littlewood [37:45]: ... both problems and someone has got a solution to that, right? So effe- essentially what finance is doing is it's measuring how efficiently and how productively we are able to provide a solution to our customers, and there's a number of layers to that solution. There's a layer of how efficiently can we acquire customers, um, and that's, you know, marketing. Nate Littlewood [38:08]: Commonly, we'll look at marketing spend as a percentage of sales. We'll look at how efficiently can we physically deliver the product to the customer, and in my world of, you know, e-commerce and physical goods, that includes, you know, the cost of manufacturing the product, the cost of putting the product in a box, the cost of the box itself, uh, the cost of mailing it and delivering it to the customer. Nate Littlewood [38:29]: You know, that's all part of the direct cost structure. Mary Meyer [38:31]: Right. Nate Littlewood [38:32]: Then there's the overhead and indirect costs, which is your staff and labor, your software, your legal and accounting, all that sort of business, and that's essentially how efficiently your team of people and agencies and other resources are managing this whole operation, right? Now, obviously, if we have small direct costs as a percentage of revenue, then we're very efficient at delivering physical products to customers. Nate Littlewood [38:58]: If we have a small overhead cost as a percentage of revenue, then we're very efficient at managing, you know, the backend logistics of, of this whole entity. Now, the goal of any business is to generate a profit, right? Nate Littlewood [39:13]: Businesses do not exist unless there is some underlying motive to, to generate a profit. Mary Meyer [39:19]: Right. Nate Littlewood [39:19]: That's not to say that, you know, w- we can't organize people in other ways, right? People can commonly corru- collect around shared interests and goals. But if we don't have profit as some type of, of a go- goal set here, then this could be a charity. It's a non-profit. It could be a hobby. Nate Littlewood [39:39]: Like, we can call it a lot of other things, but if we're not creating a profit at the end of the day, then this isn't really a business. And so the, the profitability of your company is really a, a scorecard or assessment of how efficiently you are solving someone else's problem. Nate Littlewood [39:57]: And obviously, the more efficiently you can do that, the higher profit margins will be. Nate Littlewood [40:02]: The higher your profit margins will be, the more economic value and wealth that you're gonna create, okay? Mary Meyer [40:08]: Right. Nate Littlewood [40:08]: So just wanted to, you know- Mary Meyer [40:10]: Yeah Nate Littlewood [40:10]: ... riff on that and ex- expand the concept a little bit further. Mary Meyer [40:14]: Hey, that's, that's so good. I really wanna know more about the e- your e-commerce experience, 'cause you work with, uh, consumer packaged goods, and e-commerce is kinda like where you, where your, um- Mary Meyer [40:24]: ... expertise is- Nate Littlewood [40:24]: Yeah Mary Meyer [40:24]: ... specifically. Nate Littlewood [40:25]: Mm-hmm. Mary Meyer [40:26]: And I said to you that I, I did have an e-commerce store, uh, which was a 2020 thing. Like, uh, I, I didn't, it wasn't, I had never really saw that as something I would do, but I did. And, uh, uh, mine was resale, so it was an interesting thing, is not, it wasn't creating the product and then selling it. Mary Meyer [40:46]: And I do think creating- Mary Meyer [40:47]: ... the product and then figuring out the sales channels is probably more profitable than trying to get into res- to resale, uh, in- Mary Meyer [40:54]: ... this day and age, my opinion. Um- Mary Meyer [40:57]: ... but what's, what do you think of e-commerce for people starting out? And I know I- Nate Littlewood [41:03]: Mm Mary Meyer [41:03]: ... use Shopify. Did you use Shopify? Like, what advice do you have? Nate Littlewood [41:06]: We did, yep. Mary Meyer [41:06]: What did you have, what advice do you have on that for starting e- starting e-commerce? Nate Littlewood [41:12]: Yeah. Um, well, I have a lot of thoughts on that. Um, first things first, I would make the observation that a lot of things are changing very, very fast with respect to the, the e-commerce industry. Um, some examples are that it's getting easier and easier to do. Nate Littlewood [41:33]: Like, the barriers- Mary Meyer [41:34]: Okay Nate Littlewood [41:34]: ... to entry are a lot lower. Um, that's good if you think about it from an individual perspective, because it's easier for any given person to, to get started. Nate Littlewood [41:44]: It's actually really bad from a competitive perspective, because it means a lot of other people are making the same observation, and that means that, you know, there's, it's a lot easier for you to have competition than, than what it used to be. Some of the, um, macroeconomic changes that have really shaped this landscape over the last five or six years are that the cost of buying impressions and clicks, i.e., you know, paid advertising on platforms like- Mary Meyer [42:13]: Yeah Nate Littlewood [42:13]: ... Meta and Google, has gotten a lot more expensive and a lot more competitive. And I think with AI, that trend's only gonna continue, if not accelerate. What AI is enablingIs it's allowing people to enter the world of paid media buying, i.e., Meta and, and Google, so forth. Nate Littlewood [42:32]: It's allowing people into that world who previously couldn't operate in that world. What I mean by that is people who can't write well, people who can't construct an ad, people who can't design visuals, people who can't, who couldn't before do a cool video. AI can do that for you now, right? And so the gap between the haves and the have-nots in terms of, you know, people who were able to, you know, build a brand and build all the marketing assets that you need with that is closing, right? Nate Littlewood [43:03]: So what's happening is we're getting more and more competition in terms of- Nate Littlewood [43:07]: ... bidding for these clicks and impressions, and the amount of supply isn't really changing, right? The supply is a function of how much time you and I spend on our phones scrolling through social media. Like- Mary Meyer [43:19]: Right Nate Littlewood [43:19]: ... it might be moving a little bit, but it's not changing as dramatically as the demand side is. Nate Littlewood [43:24]: So demand is going up rapidly. Supply is fairly constant. If you think back to economics at school, that basically means the price is going up, right? The price has to go up, and the price will, you know, keep going up, and they'll keep selling impressions and clicks to the highest bidder, right? So the cost of marketing and customer acquisition is going up, particularly if you spent relying on, on paid media. Nate Littlewood [43:45]: So one of the big themes that we're tackling in the, this industry at the moment is how to deal with that, right? How to reduce our dependency on media buying as a growth conduit. Um, and a lot of my clients are looking at omni-channel. They're looking at retention. They're looking at, you know, influencer. They're looking at just figuring out how to diversify away from this dependency on, on paid media. Nate Littlewood [44:07]: Another big change in the e-commerce space is that, uh, money has gotten a lot harder to access, and what that means is, you know, interest rates are a bit harder. Approval processes are more difficult to navigate, and this is important for e-commerce founders because you need money to buy the inventory. Um, most e-commerce founders will finance their inventory with debt, and through COVID, debt was easy to acquire, right? Nate Littlewood [44:36]: Basically cost nothing, almost c- you know, close to 0% interest rates. It was very, very easy to access capital to buy inventory, which meant that we went through this era where brands were sitting on oodles of inventory because it was very easy to get money. During COVID, everyone was stuck at home fiddling with their phones, and so there was an oversupply of demand and attention on these digital devices, and so the cost of customer acquisition actually went down. Nate Littlewood [45:05]: But now that's all been reversed, and so the capital that we need to finance inventory has become more expensive. Uh, marketing has become more challenging and more expensive, and so margins are, you know, certainly being, being compressed in this industry. Um, that said, you know, I think for the right brand and the r- right opportunity, um, there can still be, uh, something here, but it's certainly not as easy as it was five or six years ago. Nate Littlewood [45:35]: And I think anyone looking at getting into this space today needs to be very, very clear and have a very, very well-researched, uh, opinion and, and view and strategy on how they're actually gonna grow this business, what they're gonna do to differentiate themselves because- Nate Littlewood [45:54]: ... it's not a walk in the park like it, like it, um, uh, like it used to be. And one, one final thing I'll mention off the back of this whole, you know, marketing competition dynamic I mentioned, I'm very, very firmly of the view that product and product quality is going to become the new marketing. As I said before, AI is just leveling the playing field when it comes to marketing and customer acquisition, and so we're getting to a situation where I think we need to ask ourselves, all right, if everyone can now run ads on, on Meta, what is gonna be the thing that differentiates the brands? Nate Littlewood [46:29]: What's gonna determine who survives and who fails? And in my opinion, it'll be, you know, the things that AI can't touch and the things that's harder for, for us to get AI to do, and that'll be things like taste, quality, feel. Nate Littlewood [46:43]: Like, how good is this product? Like, do we enjoy wearing this shirt? Does it taste good when we consume it, right? Nate Littlewood [46:48]: These are the things that are gonna be driving customers to come back 'cause if customers love the product and they love the experience that they have when they buy your product, you actually don't need to do much to convince them to come back again. Mary Meyer [47:02]: Right. Nate Littlewood [47:02]: They'll do it by themselves. Not only that, they'll probably tell their friends and family about it, and so- Nate Littlewood [47:07]: ... they'll help you acquire other customers. So I am very, very bullish on brands and businesses that are, you know, hyper-focused on product and product quality, um, and I firmly believe it's gonna be the thing that determines the winners and the losers over the next, next few years. Mary Meyer [47:25]: Yeah. And I just had a couple, uh, businesses on just, uh, recently that were basically their products are just, like, the super high quality stuff that we need to feel good, and people- Mary Meyer [47:37]: ... don't feel good anymore. So I, I think that I agree with you that quality is king, uh, for sure. Uh- Nate Littlewood [47:44]: Yeah Mary Meyer [47:44]: ... I also, uh, 'cause I've done-- been in marketing, so I know, like, with Google, uh, well, and with the e-commerce business buying it and then, and then in marketing- Mary Meyer [47:53]: ... I think Google Ads about last July of 2025, it seemed to fall off a cliff in terms of... And part of that is because, uh, you know, Google has now an AI overview, so people used to go to Google- Mary Meyer [48:08]: ... and, and look down on the websites that you were trying to bid your website for a Google query. Now there's an AI- Nate Littlewood [48:14]: Yeah Mary Meyer [48:14]: ... overview. Mary Meyer [48:16]: So it's gonna be they're gonna go there and get the answer and maybe not click through websites. Uh, but you know- Mary Meyer [48:23]: ... one thing, in my opinion, that you can do is, is build a better website.So, like there's so much in, in SEOs, uh, search engine optimization is something that, uh, people, even business... Whenever I talk through this stuff with just stuff I've learned through doing my own and then marketing- Mary Meyer [48:42]: ... everyone's eyes glaze over, honestly. But one of the- Mary Meyer [48:45]: ... the best thing you can do is offer a lot of regular content on your website that's really helpful to people. Mary Meyer [48:53]: And you want external links, you want back links, you want it to be, to load fast, you want it to, uh, be visually appealing. There's all these... You wanna make sure the privacy statement is on there or Google's not- Mary Meyer [49:05]: ... and Bing is not gonna show it. So there's certain- Mary Meyer [49:07]: ... things you can do. Like, when you do e-commerce, that's your home. You don't have... If you don't have a brick-and-mortar, then you really- Mary Meyer [49:13]: Mm Mary Meyer [49:13]: ... have to have a really beautiful online home, right? Mary Meyer [49:19]: So I, I do think there's a lot of things that can be done in that to grow it. Mary Meyer [49:24]: And, um, I also sold television marketing, so like sometimes people still watch TV, television and radio, and that price has gone down as Google ad- Mary Meyer [49:33]: ... click price has gone up. Nate Littlewood [49:34]: That's true. Mary Meyer [49:35]: So it just seems like everything there is, and it's still gonna be pricey depending on what, you know, you're in, but then it becomes a matter of, yeah, you can reach everyone, but what's that one... Mary Meyer [49:46]: find one niche. So it's like, yeah, anyone could buy this. Okay, but who is buying it? So is it- Mary Meyer [49:53]: ... uh, a mother, a 35 to 45-year-old, you know, women with children? I mean, you know what I'm saying? Nate Littlewood [50:00]: Yeah. Mary Meyer [50:00]: Like, like they- Nate Littlewood [50:01]: Yeah Mary Meyer [50:01]: ... that is, that is a group that buys a lot of stuff, right? 'Cause they're buying- Mary Meyer [50:05]: ... for, for the family, so. Nate Littlewood [50:07]: Yeah. Mary Meyer [50:07]: It's a little bit of, of finding that niche, hitting that niche- Mary Meyer [50:11]: ... market. And there is... I think everyone, uh, Google and Meta are the ones that kinda just are, were easier to get into, but YouTube runs ads, um, LinkedIn. Mary Meyer [50:22]: Uh, there's, there's all these... There's, there's a lot of ways to get in front of people, and marketing is, it's, there's no way around it, it's tough. And, um- Nate Littlewood [50:31]: Yeah Mary Meyer [50:31]: ... I can't even tell you just after being in marketing how many people say they're, they're in marketing, and they're not doing anything like what I was doing. So marketing- Mary Meyer [50:41]: Mm Mary Meyer [50:41]: ... can be so many different things that sometimes it's brand, sometimes it's going out and network and meeting people, and there's this mix of sales and marketing that gets put together. Mary Meyer [50:52]: But I also think, uh, people are wanting... There is such a, a desire to see people, even if we don't have to. Nate Littlewood [51:01]: Yeah. Mary Meyer [51:01]: That's coming- Nate Littlewood [51:02]: Yeah Mary Meyer [51:02]: ... back. I think that went away for a while- Nate Littlewood [51:04]: Yeah Mary Meyer [51:04]: ... m- a little bit, but now it's coming back, and see, people will spend money to go walk through a farmer's market or do something that's- Nate Littlewood [51:13]: Yeah, yeah Mary Meyer [51:13]: ... um, so they can get in front of people more. 'Cause there, uh, there's a loneliness thing that's happening also. Nate Littlewood [51:19]: 100%, yeah. Mm-hmm. Mary Meyer [51:20]: So- Nate Littlewood [51:22]: Yeah Mary Meyer [51:23]: ... yeah. Nate Littlewood [51:23]: Uh, and I think, uh, again, to, to riff off everything you were just saying, which I agree with 1,000%, by the way, I think, um, one of the huge challenges for business owners right now is con- figuring out how to build trust with their customers, right? We're just so bombarded with AI-powered ads and messages and this and that. Nate Littlewood [51:44]: It's like it's- Nate Littlewood [51:45]: ... freaking overwhelming, man. And so our, our, part of our job as, as business owners and operators is to figure out, how can we get people to actually trust and like us? Nate Littlewood [51:56]: And to your point, I think it's about connection. It's about familiarity. It's about showing up. It's showing that you know what you're talking about, like this is a good product, and, and that you're believable and credible. Nate Littlewood [52:08]: Um, so I think, uh, yeah, particularly for, for your world in, in, in the marketing industry, I think that's gonna be hugely, hugely important. Nate Littlewood [52:17]: Um, don't know if you've got any further thoughts- Mary Meyer [52:19]: Yeah Nate Littlewood [52:19]: ... on that, but... Mary Meyer [52:20]: Well, a- another really interesting one is that, um, Google has their AI bots, right, that just are constantly scraping websites to find information. Mary Meyer [52:29]: And- Mary Meyer [52:29]: ... and both them and apparently LinkedIn also, based on what another guest said, is they are having their AI bots scrape through things, finding AI- Mary Meyer [52:38]: ... content and ranking it lower. Mary Meyer [52:42]: Now, this is- Nate Littlewood [52:42]: Yeah Mary Meyer [52:42]: ... this is br- this is... Well, this is funny too, 'cause now we're having- Nate Littlewood [52:46]: Yeah. Mary Meyer [52:47]: ... AI score AI low. So- Nate Littlewood [52:49]: Yeah. Mary Meyer [52:50]: ... what, what the AI bots are saying is, "We want human content and not AI content." Nate Littlewood [52:56]: Yeah. Mary Meyer [52:56]: Uh, you know, and so- Mary Meyer [52:59]: No fair Mary Meyer [52:59]: ... and it, and the, and we don't like AI bot messaging, so like LinkedIn's getting rid of everyone who's doing AI bot messaging. They don't like that. Mary Meyer [53:07]: ... they're going through and, you know, you gotta, like, get rid of fake accounts which- Nate Littlewood [53:11]: Yeah Mary Meyer [53:11]: ... can also be AI generated. So it is, it is an actual thing that I don't... I just haven't heard anyone talk about it, but the platforms know the pro- the problem of, of the a- you know, of, like, the s- the spamming is becomes, right? And so they have to- Nate Littlewood [53:27]: Yeah Mary Meyer [53:27]: ... use their AI to keep AI at bay. Mary Meyer [53:31]: That's kind- Nate Littlewood [53:31]: Yeah Mary Meyer [53:31]: ... I don't know. That's, that's a little interesting and a little bit- ... funny to me. It's, uh, it's- Nate Littlewood [53:36]: I know. The ir- irony of it's pretty crazy, isn't it? It's kind of AI cannibalism. It's like, you guys birthed- ... this, and now you're trying to kill it. Mary Meyer [53:43]: Right. Our AI is better than your AI. I don't know. That's- Nate Littlewood [53:47]: Yeah. Mary Meyer [53:49]: Uh, yeah, and I mean, it is, it is just tough, and it's... I think marketing is that. Mary Meyer [53:53]: You know, there's so many businesses who are like, "Well, I've grown without marketing." It's like, "But how?" Um, so like if- Nate Littlewood [53:59]: Yeah Mary Meyer [53:59]: ... you have a brick-and-mortar and you're just unique, uh- Nate Littlewood [54:02]: Yeah Mary Meyer [54:02]: ... it, it might require a little bit less, but you're still gonna be... If you're brick-and-mortar and unique, I mean, you're gonna grow exponentially if you do some marketing- Nate Littlewood [54:12]: Yeah Mary Meyer [54:12]: ... and the right kind of marketing. Nate Littlewood [54:13]: Yeah. Mary Meyer [54:13]: And you wanna hit people in this area, and there's- Mary Meyer [54:16]: ... there's all the not necessarily geo-fencing anymore, we don't call it that, but, uh- Mary Meyer [54:21]: ... and I've gotten out of marketing a little bit, but, um, I, I'm more into working with the IT company. It's more something that I just, I just know people seem to know e- don't know what they can do with a website to build it to get eyeballs to come to it- Mary Meyer [54:38]: ... and, uh, you know, kinda more in the SEO kinda thing. Um- Mary Meyer [54:43]: ... 'cause even the blogs you're putting on, you have to have monthly-You know, uh, they want a monthly update to your website- Mary Meyer [54:50]: ... and people are using the AI to write a blog. Mary Meyer [54:54]: What if you just started with your AI blog, but completely change it to put your own stuff in there, and then put it on your website- Mary Meyer [55:01]: ... 'cause then there's more value to it? Just, um- Mary Meyer [55:05]: Yeah Mary Meyer [55:05]: ... things like that. Mary Meyer [55:06]: Uh, but, uh, it, it does go back to just everything you're saying. You gotta have a, a really good product, right? I mean, people- Mary Meyer [55:13]: ... have to want what you have, it has to be unique. Um- Nate Littlewood [55:17]: Yep Mary Meyer [55:18]: ... some... And, uh, and, uh, start there. Mary Meyer [55:22]: And, and, uh, uh, and what did you also say? Make sure it's... You didn't say make sure it's financially viable. You used a different term, market. Uh, what is the term you used? Nate Littlewood [55:34]: Uh- Mary Meyer [55:35]: Market, market ready, uh- Nate Littlewood [55:38]: Product market fit? Mary Meyer [55:38]: Product market fit, something like that. But- Nate Littlewood [55:39]: Is that what you mean? Mm. Mary Meyer [55:40]: C- it could be. But, like, what, what would you recommend someone does? Like, they think they have something and they wanna start a business, and they got the, a cookie, they have a book, they have a, a service that they do. Mary Meyer [55:53]: They're a roofer. Like, just- Mary Meyer [55:56]: Yeah Mary Meyer [55:56]: ... kinda like your everyday people can do this. They know something about it. Um, um, but you're in packaged goods. So, like, what, you know, what, what is the way to start to know that you have something that people wanna buy? Mary Meyer [56:11]: Like- Nate Littlewood [56:13]: Yeah Mary Meyer [56:13]: ... how do you get there? Nate Littlewood [56:15]: What I often say to founders who have a physical good or, or an idea about a physical good company or product- Nate Littlewood [56:23]: ... is to start w- at markets, stalls, farmers markets. Like, go on the ground and talk to real human beings. Um, when I first started my, uh, my e-commerce business, we spent a g- um, a number of months at the Artists and Fleas Market over in Williamsburg, uh, Brooklyn. And we went into this thinking, "Okay, we've got this product," and, you know, we thought we understood what the value proposition was and why people would be interested in it. Nate Littlewood [56:51]: And we set up our little, you know, booth or stall at this market. And no one really cared about the value proposition that we had in our head. People were being drawn to our display, and being drawn to the product, and telling us about use cases for the product that we hadn't even imagined. Mary Meyer [57:08]: Oh, wow. Nate Littlewood [57:08]: And we're like, "Oh, wow, okay, so that's what you want to use it for." Uh, and this was, you know, l- like, a little gardening kit, for, for context. And, um, uh, it was just so educational and eye-opening to get that one-to-one, real-time feedback from real customers. And once you've gotten to the point that you have got a story, and you've got messaging, and you've got a, a, a product or a problem that customers connect with, and they're willing to exchange real money for, then you can start moving on to the chapter about scaling it. Nate Littlewood [57:42]: And in my o- Mary Meyer [57:43]: Mm-hmm Nate Littlewood [57:43]: ... world, that often involves, you know, going online, Shopify, so forth, paid media. Nate Littlewood [57:48]: And then you've got to figure out, "Okay, I was able to sell," whatever, "a few hundred bucks worth of this thing at the market on the weekend. But, like, can I do, you know, $1,000 a day? Can I do $10,000 a day?" Like, "How, how many and how efficiently can I scale this business? And is there a viable path here to, you know, potentially millions of dollars of revenue?" Which is kinda where you need to get to for a physical products business if you wanna create any type of financial, you know, wealth for yourself and, and have an exit. Nate Littlewood [58:17]: Um, so, uh, yeah, I don't know if that's helpful in terms of advice, but I'm- Mary Meyer [58:23]: Yeah Nate Littlewood [58:23]: ... a big advocate for starting small. Starting at markets one-to-one, face-to-face contact with real customers is what you need. Mary Meyer [58:32]: I think that's brilliant. Yeah, that's a really good idea. I know we're k- we're running out of time a little bit here. Mary Meyer [58:37]: Uh, Nate, this has been super helpful, I think, to start small, scale, grow. Uh, can you, can you give us a, a, a thought now where they've started, they've started their e-commerce, they have a viable product, and they're wanting to scale. Mary Meyer [58:52]: Uh- Mary Meyer [58:52]: ... what then? Nate Littlewood [58:55]: So you have a viable product, you're wanting to scale. Your next job is to run as many marketing and sales experiments as you possibly can. Mary Meyer [59:04]: Okay. Nate Littlewood [59:05]: And you should set up a spreadsheet, and you should have one row for every experiment that you're running. And you'll have the name of the experiment, you'll have what it cost you. And when I say experiment, this could be, you know, email marketing. It could be spending a few thousand dollars on Facebook ads. It could be a partnership. It could be influencer. It could be a collaboration with another brand. Like, just come up with as many of these ideas as you can. Nate Littlewood [59:29]: And your job is to rattle through dozens and dozens of these, and every time, you know, collect the data, learn what works, learn where you've got good numbers, learn where you've got bad. And just start to, uh, explore for and figure out what are your scalable and repeatable sales and marketing opportunities. Nate Littlewood [59:50]: Um, something I'd, I'd really want to impress on folks is that just because something works for someone else, just because you've got a friend who's grown their business this way, or just because you've seen a competitor grow their business that way, doesn't necessarily mean that you should be doing the same thing, right? You have a different product. You potentially have slightly different customers. Nate Littlewood [60:13]: But most importantly, you're a different individual, right? You have different skills, you have different interests, you have different things that you're gonna be good at and you're gonna excel at. So especially when you've got a small team, um, you are the company, right? You are close- Mary Meyer [60:28]: Yeah Nate Littlewood [60:28]: ... to 100% of it. And whatever this thing is that you're gonna be doing to scale and acquire customers, you need to enjoy doing it, and you need to be good at it, because if you're not, you're probably not gonna sustain it for very long. So you need to figure out, you know, some version of marketing and customer acquisition that works for you. And to your point earlier about SEO and content, like, maybe it's making videos, maybe it's writing, maybe it's doing how, how-to guides, or maybe it's doing, you know, Instagram. Nate Littlewood [60:57]: Like-I, I don't really care. Like, it doesn't matter but just figure out something that works for you and your brand, uh, because if you love it, if you're good at it, then you're far more likely to succeed at it. Mary Meyer [61:08]: Yes. That's brilliant. That's very good advice. Uh, Nate, uh, how do people find you and, uh, how do people find you? Nate Littlewood [61:17]: Sure. So uh, two, two places to look for me is firstly the website, uh, which is just futurereadycfo.com. Uh, in terms of the socials, I'm most active on LinkedIn. Uh, my name again is Nate Littlewood, and, uh, I'm posting on LinkedIn pretty much every week. Nate Littlewood [61:35]: Uh, so feel free to learn more about what I do and some of the ideas I'm sharing on there. Um, and if any of it's interesting and you'd like to chat, feel free to, to shoot me a DM. Mary Meyer [61:46]: Yes. And you have a podcast also, and people can listen to that anywhere on, on YouTube. Mary Meyer [61:51]: And what's the name of the podcast? Nate Littlewood [61:52]: Correct. Yeah, the show's called Profits on Purpose, and it's basically for founders who are navigating the intersection of purpose-led entrepreneurship with the financial realities of needing to generate a profit. Mary Meyer [62:08]: Yes. And I do think, I think there's a lot of, uh, viability in a really good product because so much of, of what is commonly on the market and you find is literal trash. Mary Meyer [62:20]: Uh, clothes made from plastic or, you know, plastic in our food supply or, or whatever, you know, junk is in there. Nate Littlewood [62:27]: Yeah. Mary Meyer [62:27]: So there, there is a market for quality products in my opinion- Nate Littlewood [62:31]: Definitely Mary Meyer [62:31]: ... 'cause I know I want them. Nate Littlewood [62:33]: Yeah. Mary Meyer [62:33]: And I get frustrated- Nate Littlewood [62:34]: Mm-hmm Mary Meyer [62:34]: ... about finding them. Um- Nate Littlewood [62:36]: Mm-hmm Mary Meyer [62:36]: ... so I love that you're purpose-driven, uh, that kind of thing. But, uh, what, to, to close us out, what else do you wanna share with everybody? Nate Littlewood [62:48]: Well, Mary, this has been a great conversation. I think we've, we've covered a lot. Um, if I were to offer one parting thought, it would be that if you identify as someone who's overwhelmed by finances and are maybe in that, you know, denial or overwhelmed phase that we talked about earlier, um, but you're intrigued about what life could look like as a business owner, um, if you can get to the enlightenment phase, then ask for some help. Nate Littlewood [63:16]: Like, there's, you know, fractional CFOs like me that specialize in literally every industry, right? Nate Littlewood [63:22]: I do physical goods, but there's people that do ser- services businesses. I was talking to a, a peer last night who specializes in, you know, sub-$1 million retail stores, right? Like brick-and-mortar mom-and-pop-type shops. Um, find someone who specializes in your industry. Um, get a little bit of help, get a little bit of coaching and, uh, you know, it's never been easier to get this sort of support and, and, and advice. Nate Littlewood [63:45]: Even if you just use AI for this stuff, like, right? Like, AI can build financial models for you now. But, um, yeah, my one parting word of advice, uh, I'll go back to the quote that I shared earlier. It is so much easier to build a business in a spreadsheet than it is in real life. Nate Littlewood [64:01]: So do yourself a favor and, uh, make sure you understand the numbers. Mary Meyer [64:05]: Yes. Thank you. Nate, I appreciate your time. Thank you. Have a wonderful rest of your day. Thanks for sharing your wisdom. Nate Littlewood [64:12]: Of course. It's been a pleasure. Thanks for having me, Mary. Mary Meyer [64:14]: Yeah.