Awards are a great way to increase the credibility of your business, but also provide an opportunity to reflect on your strategy; benchmark or validate what you’re doing against others to make sure you’re on the right track; and are fantastic for team building.
Having recently been on the judging panel for the UK eCommerce Awards, I wanted to share my top tips for writing an award-winning submission.
I recently gave the keynote talk at the first-ever Digital Accountancy Show on ‘The rise of data’, how it’s all around us and we’re vastly under-utilising it. A business’s success can, in some part be measured by how they harness insight from the data they have. But waiting too long to turn your data into relevant information seriously impacts decision making.
There are a number of metrics out there for SaaS businesses. Here I’m going to look at the Rule of 40 – it helps create a link between the investments you’re making in acquiring customers and the value they’re returning.
As an Unleashed partner, we’ve recommended the Unleashed cloud-based inventory management software platform to a number of our clients – but why? Find out the reasons we think Unleashed is a great tool for many fast-growing e-commerce businesses
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Finance functions are crucial to every business and successful businesses need to be able to rely on their finance function to help them grow.
Strong financial controls, a robust governance strategy and the link between your P&L and balance sheet in your financials might not be front of mind for you, but when it comes to getting investment, they will certainly be front of mind to potential investors.
Building a robust financial model is vital, especially to support the Series A Funding process. In this article, I examine the key considerations needed for e-commerce businesses. […]
Data is the secret to better decision-making. It’s also a magnet for investors. Not only do the right metrics provide intelligence on how to run your business, but they drum up confidence in VCs who find comfort in numbers. In this blog, I explore the key metrics every e-commerce business needs to know.
For founders of fast-growth businesses, there is a mountain of jobs that in a more established business would usually fall under the remit of the CFO. Whilst a full-time CFO might not be an option right now, could a portfolio CFO be the answer? this blog explain more about what portfolio CFO’s do and how they can help fast-growth businesses.
How long does Series A funding last? How much equity is given up in Series A? Find out the answers to these and other common questions in our Series A funding FAQs.
In my last blog, I wrote about unit economics – what it is, why it’s important and how to calculate it. Having worked with lots of e-commerce businesses (and even in one), I know this isn’t always easy. There are a number of mistakes that we often see cropping up – here’s how to avoid making the same mistakes and how to fix them.
We set out some of the basics of Enterprise Management Incentive (EMI) Share Options; so you can assess whether it might be the right thing for your business as it scales and grows.
In my last blog I looked at non-financial qualities investors look for in a future investment.
Here I talk about the hard metrics you need to know (and show), why they’re important and how you present them to create a compelling story for investors. […]
In this blog I will look at unit economics, what it is, why it’s important and how to calculate it.
When it comes to looking for investment in your business, it’s important to put yourself in the investor’s shoes.
Having helped lots of businesses through the investment process, I wanted to share my experience of what investors look for when it comes to investing. […]
As businesses move from seed funding to Series A rounds and beyond, the funding process becomes a lot more complicated.
Building a robust financial model with integrated P&L, balance sheet and cash flow is one thing, but knowing what investors are looking for and delivering it is another matter.
Retail has seen a lot of losers disappear rapidly from the high street, but Thorntons’ gradual retreat was years in the making.
In our work with fast-growth companies to transform finance functions, we see common issues and frustrations between founders and their finance support. These frustrations often manifest into problems that impact business growth.
The good news is they are all fixable. As Obama might say, ‘it’s what we do’.
As your business grows, the nature of the challenges you’ll face will change. New markets. Fundraising. Expansion. Relocation.
With the exponential increase in data and collaborative cloud tools, your finance function could become business storytellers. And for the sake of your business, they must do.
It’s not all plain sailing. Setting up and running your own business isn’t always what you thought it would be.
The past decade has been a roller-coaster ride for Britain’s real-life high-street Monopoly owner. In this article, I consider the implications of the collapse of Sir Philip Green’s Arcadia Group.
We spoke to Daniel Teacher, managing director at T-Tech, who provide technology, consulting, support, & strategy for forward-thinking, small & medium-sized Accountancy practices to add more value & support.
The fast-fashion retailer saw a surge in virtual footfall due to the nationwide lockdown, but can it climb back from PwC resigning as its auditor and a recent working practice scandal?
We spoke to Brendan Shanks, founder and CEO at Husky, a London-based Fintech company that makes it easy to take control of your workplace pension through their app and makes sure you’re investing in what’s important to you. Husky helps to make informed pension decisions so you can take control of your personal financial future.
I recently had the pleasure of judging the Digital Accountancy Show awards. I’m a big fan of awards. While winning an award, or being shortlisted feels great and is confirmation you’re on the right path, it’s the process of applying for an award that’s much more powerful for your business success.
There are a lot of apps available to build forecasts. They all work to some extent but like everything, they have their sweet spot and they have their limitations. The more you pay, the more power and functionality you get. But if you’re looking to build a multi-year model to put in front of an investor, expect to build it in a spreadsheet. It pains me to say that given how much we leverage technology but it’s the way it is (for now). Equally, investors know and understand spreadsheets; it’s much less likely they know and understand the black box of an app you choose.
It can be pretty confusing to understand what is really going on with high-street companies. Even before Covid-19 times, there seemed to be continual news of high-street giants shedding jobs or closing down. In recent months, we’ve seen even more of a flurry of high-street redundancies, closures, CVAs, and administrations. Unfortunately, Debenhams is just another on a long list, that’s getting longer.
If you haven’t seen the news, Gymshark announced it’s now worth more than £1bn thanks to a 21% investment from General Atlantic. This now brings founder, Ben Francis’, share of Gymshark to over £700m.
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I recently watched the movie Coach Carter for the first time – if you haven’t seen it before it’s a biographical sports film drama based on the true story of a basketball coach (Coach Ken Carter) played in the movie by Samuel L Jackson.
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Share options are common currency today for attracting and retaining staff in the fast-growth tech world. They are also becoming more common place in other companies. Share options are frequently used to incentivise, and part compensate, employees in their commitment to an aligned goal of increasing the value of the business, and thus rewarding loyal employees when that value is realised.
I often write about screw-ups; Jamie Oliver, Patisserie Valerie, HMV, Theranos, Marks & Spencer, Pizza Express, Heinz etc. After all, we learn most from mistakes – and learning from other people’s means we can hopefully avoid making them ourselves.
However, this time I want to write about a company that’s doing things well, a company that has an inspiring story, and hopefully one we can also learn just as much from – Gymshark.
In this webinar, I wanted to give my views on how to keep a focused state of mind to increase your ability in both business and personal performance. I feel it is critical in stressful times to be able to de-stress, reenergize, and focus on the task at hand, especially during the current times of this webinar being recorded.
I’ve started watching McMillion$ on Sky. McMillion$ is the story of the McDonalds Monopoly scam that occurred between 1995 and 2001. I’m only a couple of episodes into it so I don’t know the full story yet but it’s fascinating to watch and hear.
Listen to the article:
I was a huge Michael Jordan fan; I watched every game on Eurosport as a kid, I even had a full-sized poster of him in my room (next to Charles Barkley from the Phoenix Suns). But even if you’re not a basketball fan, if you haven’t seen The Last Dance, you’re missing out on one of the most inspiring sporting stories of all time.
Listen to the article:
I’m not going to dress this up – physical retail has absolutely and definitively taken a complete beating in the last month.
I was recently out on my bike getting a bit of exercise and whilst out I had a few thoughts on how the countryside hills I was navigating had some parallels to being an entrepreneur running a business. The following are my thoughts I recorded while cycling that explains the challenges:
Hope you’re doing well and combatting any cabin fever you may be feeling working from home the past week! In this blog post I wanted to talk about how we are approaching COVID-19 at flinder & how you can safeguard your business in the months ahead.
Here’s an important email that I sent out earlier today to flinder clients:
Dear all, following on from my note last Friday please see below additional business exercises to consider in these testing times. Businesses need to prepare for potential significant business disruption and adverse impact to demand (some may actually see an increase in demand depending on their sector).
Many entrepreneurs struggle to get enough sleep. I’m one of them – my most creative thoughts come to me in the middle of the night. I can fall asleep within seconds of my head hitting the pillow but it’s the 4 hours later that I’m literally wide awake with so many ideas running through my head. And so with that in mind, this week’s 3 things are all about sleep….
This is a note that I sent out to our clients earlier today in light of the recent developments with COVID-19.
Alastair Barlow examines the history of M&S leading up to its recent deterioration and loss of CFO Humphrey Singer.
flinder celebrated in style as they took home Mid-Sized Practice of the Year 2020 after experiencing unprecedented growth in the past 12 months.
HMV has been in the news recently so I thought I would dig in a little deeper to see what was going on with its performance and strategy. Have a read below for my take on this once high-street super-giant!
Moneyball is a 2011 American sports film based on Michael Lewis’s 2003 non-fiction book of the same name. It’s based on the true story of the Oakland Athletics baseball team’s 2002 season and their general manager Billy Beane’s attempts to assemble a competitive team using data!
Value is one of the most important concepts in business but too often we let price get in the way of seeing the value.
As we get back to work this week at the start of a new decade, many businesses (and people in general) will be thinking about objectives (or New Year’s resolutions) for the coming year. While the business side of this should have been done a long time ago, it’s better late than never.
Finance is not a support function so don’t treat it that way: it’s an enabler to making sound decisions and getting investment, so get your act together and stop putting investors off, writes triple Accounting Excellence award-winner Alastair Barlow.
Happy New Year – we hope it’s a great one! What you’re about to read will flip all your goals for the next year upside down.
Have you ever used Airtable?
