I’m a Finance Guy — But Here’s Something I’ve Struggled With as a Founder

I’m a finance guy. Budgets, models, forecasts — that’s my comfort zone.

But the longer I’ve worked with early-stage founders, the more I’ve come to realize something: the biggest challenges aren’t always on the balance sheet. Sometimes they’re internal — and I’ve felt it firsthand.

In the early days of building Growth Partners, I tried to play both CEO and CFO. I’d spend half the day thinking big-picture, casting the vision, pushing growth. The other half I was pulling reports, scrutinizing burn rate, double-checking forecasts. It was like switching between the gas and the brakes — over and over again.

Guess what? It doesn’t work.

Founders often ask when they should bring in a CFO. 

My answer? 

As soon as you realize that being the visionary and the reality-checker are two different jobs — and you can’t fully do both without sacrificing one. CEOs need to be optimistic. CFOs need to be realistic. One is about ambition. The other is about accountability. If you're trying to juggle both, you’re probably leaving your business exposed somewhere.

Another struggle? Working on the business vs. working in it.

I see this all the time — founders who are deep in the weeds. Managing vendors, approving every invoice, drafting job descriptions. That level of involvement might have worked in the early days, but as the business grows, your job needs to evolve. If you don’t protect your time and focus, your business will plateau. Worse, you’ll burn out.

And finally — balancing gut instinct with data.

This one might surprise you coming from a CFO, but I believe too much data can be a problem. If you’re measuring everything, you're probably moving too slowly. If you're not measuring anything, you're flying blind. The key is knowing when to follow your intuition and when to double-click into the numbers. That balance is what separates great operators from lucky ones.

What I’ve learned — and what I now tell every founder — is that scaling a company isn’t just about what you know. It’s about how you manage your time, your energy, and your judgment.

You don’t have to do everything. You just have to do the right things — and build a team that can do the rest.