#19 Q4 & The Year-End Sprint 🏃

Gm crew! Remember, you can’t spell “fund finance” without “FUN” :)! 🚀

Welcome to the new members of @TheFundCFO crew! Every [week] or so (#goals), we’ll bring you actionable tools, real-world experiences, and insider insights for #VC CFOs and fund managers, #LP investors, and general industry enthusiasts/people who want to learn :).

Share this on Twitter or LinkedIn to help grow the crew! Or check out our prior newsletters and insights here. We appreciate you!

Welcome to Q4 Everyone! 93 Days Until 2023, Let’s Get It! 🔥

We’re staying positive over here! Friendly reminder that every 🐻 market goes down more than most think it will. Good news: it has always recovered and it will this time!

Applying Product Sprints as a CFO to Finance & Operations

I started working closely with Chapter One almost two years ago. Our team has ex-product managers and engineers w/ experience at big tech companies (i.e. Tinder, Facebook, Twitter, Salesforce, etc.). At many big tech co.’s, the two-week product sprint is a common structure for teams to iterate and ship product updates. While none of these co.’s are perfect, it’s hard to argue with the industry success!

We’ve applied the product sprint concept to our #finance and #operations initiatives (FinOps) at Chapter One and other firms. We’ve experimented w/ one-week sprints for smaller projects but have found two-week sprints ideal for bigger initiatives. We’ve focused on the following:

1. Define Key Areas of Responsibility: our team works across Company FinOps, Fund FinOps, Companies (Existing & New), & Investors (Existing & New)

2. Sprint Structure & Top 3 Priorities: within the larger key areas, we structure sprints to execute on more targeted initiatives. We define our top 3 priorities as a team and individually each day in our daily standup meeting

3. Ship Product: this is the goal. Our traditional products include presentations, Excel/Sheets analyses, and Word/Docs that serve as playbooks going forward. We focus on “shipping product” to our broader internal team and partners (portfolio companies and investors) on a weekly basis. We are constantly iterating and improving the “products” but believe a shipping mentality is key to surface insights w/ our team/partners and drive feedback loops to improve

A lot of detail has been written on product-sprints - you can learn more here:

The Year-End Sprint & Q4 Checklist

As we head toward year-end, we’re applying one and two-week sprints to close strong. We’re managing growing complexity with great partners and yes, a Q4 Checklist! Here’s a summarized version of the checklist we use to make sure all things finance and operations are in a great place:

1. Fund Financial Models: how are we tracking vs. our financial models? What should we change in our models for future funds? Can we use software tools like Tactyc to enhance our analyses? Check out our prior VC Fund Model post here

2. Investments: are we organized? Do our internal tracking files (in Excel :)) match our signed legal documents and administrator accounting records?

3. Expense Review vs. Budget: what were our Q3 and YTD expenses relative to company, fund budgets? Why were we over / under? Are we using all of our subscriptions or could some be adjusted?

4. Expense & Cash Flow Forecast: update. use #3 to update our forecast for the rest of the year and begin forecasting for the next full year

5. Balance Sheet: review. Who do we owe money to and when? Who owes us?

6. Investor Reporting: did we deliver on-time and as expected thus far this year? Should we make any adjustments for the rest of the year and next year?

7. Compliance & Legal: have we filed appropriate documents w/ banks, gov’t agencies? Do we have the right compliance, legal partners in place to support?

8. Internal Team Check: is everyone in a good place? Take the time to ask :)

9. External Partners Check: accounting, banking, legal, audit/tax, compliance, technology, cyber, asset custody, etc. - all working well?

10. Goals & Targets: what goals & targets did we set at the beginning of the year? What did we hit / miss? What should we update for the rest of the year?

That’s all for today folks! Thanks for your support and spreading the word! Share this on Twitter or LinkedIn to help grow “the crew!”