As a serial entrepreneur, consulting CFO, and angel investor, I’ve been building, advising, and investing since the early 2000’s. I’m driven by curiosity, intuition, and logic and am passionate about the intersection of innovative yet practical solutions to everyday problems.
Half engineer and all business, I seek to quickly understand how things work, use a combination of readily available tools and custom design to achieve the most efficient outcomes possible, and hustle to get there first. I love setting people up to succeed by sharing knowledge and best practices.
I grew up in Silicon Valley, studied business economics at UCLA, then cut my teeth in a variety of accounting, finance, ops, and software development roles across large enterprise, SMB, and venture-backed startups. I keep it interesting these days with CFO consulting, cofounding a few startups, and leading a team of 80+ finance & accounting experts working across 5 time zones in support of hundreds of client businesses.
People, processes, and systems all interact through complex relationship patterns powered by incentives, dependencies, and human nature. I see the world through these logical correlations and follow a bottom’s-up philosophy to model real world dynamics with quantifiable metrics. My financial forecasts tell stories that precisely represent real life scenarios. I can’t literally see around corners, but my gut is usually right.
How we do anything is how we do everything. I am a driven perfectionist who gets straight to the point and always gives 150%. I enjoy working with ambitious entrepreneurs who value collaboration and are willing to put in the hard work necessary to achieve success.
A strong sense of justice and moral conviction are the backbone of my unwavering commitment to do what’s best for my own family, others, and the entire planet that we’re all borrowing from future generations. My lovely wife and I are proud parents of two incredible teenage daughters who inspire us to be the best humans we know how to be, for their benefit. As a family, we conserve, reuse, recycle, share, respect, regenerate, donate, and pay it forward. We’re carbon neutral and eager to lead others by example.
Growing companies must look forward to manage cash burn and anticipate future capital needs. Solid financial projections rely on thoughtful bookkeeping (looking back) to inform insightful assumptions and give business owners visibility around varying profit margins, costs, cash flow timing, and other KPIs.
Looking forward requires strong technical analysis paired with strategic thinking to anticipate and plan for the future, which are very different skills from the looking back function. Its very rare for one person to excel in both disciplines, and in a large company there are entirely different departments for each--there is an Accounting department that looks back and a Finance department that looks forward.
Small companies with limited resources often attempt to have the same person both looking back and looking forward. If you aren’t getting what you want by doing that, don’t be surprised. If you can’t find or afford to staff two separate departments in your business, consider outsourcing one or both functions to a dedicated team of experts in the field.
My large and diverse team at SPRCHRGR performs the looking back functions while also looking forward. We are fully staffed to provide comprehensive enterprise-level accounting and finance services to transform the way SMBs operate and position them for optimized growth. :)
Day job:
Investing member / LP:
2022 annual report here
various direct startup investments
Mentor:
UCLA & USC entrepreneurship programs
Board member / advisor:
Women Founders Network Foundation (Treasurer, 2017-current)
Los Angeles Venture Association (Treasurer, 2016-2024)
ProVisors Innovation Affinity Group (Group leader, 2020-current)
Paid advisor to various startups
Builder:
ballparq.io (cofounder; SaaS; exited 2022)
AllSet (cofounder; subscription box; failed 2021)
wood + light (hobby)
balloon sculptures (paid my way thru college)