September & October 2012 eCFO Tips: Always do a beauty contest when it comes to selecting advisors/service providers. No matter how small you are, always have at least 3 potential advisors compete for business. You will learn a lot through these interviews and it will be time well spent. Make sure you also invite people […]

As an eCFO you will have to deal with a range of different service providers. While making good decisions in this area help you to substantially improve your operations and allow you to run the business effectively, making bad decisions can be very costly to you and your new venture. I would recommend that you […]

I just had a very interesting discussion with one of our CEOs. In essence it involved a heated debate on what to do with substantial accumulated funds of one of our portfolio businesses. Invest, save or distribute to shareholders – for me it was clear that a start-up needs to heavily invest if it sees […]

Balance sheet Your balance sheet – yes, you have seen it when the yearly accounts were prepared but it really did not matter to your start-up. For you the one and only key was liquidity in the beginning, followed by profitability but what now? Yes, those accounts become important eventually. What do I mean by […]

So, why do we even bother with all of this? Initially, you need to make sure that your business performs well, does not run out of money and that financials analysis and data points support operational decisions. All of that you can do but if you are a serious eCFO this is probably not the […]

August 2012 eCFO Tips: Communication, communication, communication… when it comes to strategic decisions never assume that you know what each stakeholder wants. You will most likely approach a decision from a financial analysis perspective – most other (normal) people will not think that way – so make sure you talk to everyone and do not […]

Here an interesting article from London based Seedcamp partner Carlos – great read! Managing the Legal Process in an Early Stage Startup  

Business model testing (Is it profitable? Is it scalable?) Regular checks are important for a start-up. Have your previously set goals been reached and if so, can the business be scaled further? We usually measure the scalability by starting with relatively small trial cases that cover a broad range of marketing measures. Can we generate […]

Enough of all the theoretical posts! Here is a more interesting, operationally focused case study. I think that my previous posts have theoretically highlighted various aspects of being an eCFO but what does it mean for operational reality? In order to further highlight this I was able to get permission from one of our venture […]

Very interesting article for German entrepreneurs on Gründerszene.de. Watch out what the tax treatment for your equity shares will change in the coming month! http://www.gruenderszene.de/recht/gesetzesaenderung-exit-holdings