282. CFO Revisited: Start-up CFO to COO - Funding, Scaling and Recruiting in a start-up world with Sabrina Castiglione

0:00Welcome to CFO 4.0, the future of finance. The CFO role is changing rapidly, moving from cost controller to strategic visionary. And with every change comes opportunity. We are here to help you take advantage of this transition to win at work, drive your career forwards and lead with confidence. Join Hannah Munro, Managing Director of ITAS, a financial transformation consultancy, as she interviews key experts to give you real-world advice and guidance on how to transform your processes, people and data. Welcome to CFO 4.0, the future of finance.

0:48So hello everybody and welcome to this episode of CFO 4.0. So with me today is Sabrina Castelloni and I'm not going to, I hope I've got that pronunciation right because she has a beautiful Italian last name. But welcome Sabrina, wonderful to have you on the show and thank you for joining me. Lovely to be here, thank you so much for having me and that pronunciation is perfect. I've heard much worse. I will take that and run with it. So obviously you are currently working as Chief Operating Officer at Pento. Do you want to just tell us a little bit about how you ended up there and what was your journey was?

1:27Yeah, absolutely. So I had like a pretty circuitous route into even my former job just before this. So casting kind of way back, you know, I did chemistry at university and it was a four-year course. You know, you do your bachelor's in years one to three and then a master's in year four. and I'm like a pretty geeky kid at this point you know I love learning um I'm thinking there I am I'm gonna be an academic you know this is gonna be the dream spend all day learning and doing research that fourth year doing chemistry research as part of my master's was uh a wake-up call and it was very much no no no no no no no this is absolutely absolutely not for me um and back then this was you know I graduated I think 2011 um so 2008 had kind of come and gone well I was kind of recovering a little bit from that shock but um you know it still wasn't entirely totally recovered in banking and my family was very traditional and it was like well you know go and pick a professional career and if you're not going to go into banking go find go be a lawyer or an accountant or something and just so happens I fell into actuarial so pensions actuarial specifically so you know the most exciting part of actuarial a dying industry even when I got into it back then so you know working on a lot of the large defined benefit pension schemes and a mix of kind of consultancy and in-house for about five years but you know it's it's similar like a kind of going into an accountancy practice in like audit or taxes and it tends to be two years of doing, two years of checking, two years of reviewing and then maybe you'll get near like some of the exciting stuff.

3:21But I'm not the world's most patient person and after about five years I came to the realization that you know I needed a job that was more than just a paycheck and took some time out to figure out what I wanted to do. And someone who evidently knew me far, far better than I knew myself said, do you know what, Sabrina, like, I think, you know, stable environments aren't for you. Like, you know, when all the big problems have been solved, you're probably not going to enjoy it as much. Go somewhere just crazy and chaotic, go to a startup and I've never really thought of it before um you know as I said very traditional family and you know I spoke to my mother and they were like oh you know that's not a thing that an adult goes and does Sabrina like that doesn't make any sense um but happened to you know wisely take this person's advice and speak to a couple of companies and came across at the time, absolutely tiny company, now Tessian, but back then called Czech Recipient.

4:28And at the time, there were six people, three founders and three employees. There were the two technical co-founders, the data scientists, and they wanted to do all of the building the product. And then there was the commercial co-founder, the CEO, and he had two salespeople. And that was all of the go-to-market side. And the pitch was really, please make everything else go away. just all of the other stuff that has to happen for a company to be a company please just come and figure it out and I remember you know about a year in sitting down with the people who'd hired me and they said well you know we thought you'd come in and hire a bit do a bit of finance and like by that point in time I was running finance legal people talent actually IT and information security and it just kind of you know snowballed from there and so Tessian is now you know north of 300 people you know and that was kind of five and a half years later after joining went through the seed the series a b and c funding grounds just incredible kind of global growth and just a lot of challenges a lot of mistakes it definitely wasn't a plane sailing the whole time because we were figuring out from scratch.

5:45But eventually that role became CFO. And it was really, really wonderful to kind of be that person, you know, taking all of that information from various parts of the business. And when I say model, I don't just mean like, yes, there is a spreadsheet model, but I don't just mean the spreadsheet model. I mean that kind of that overall picture of how all the pieces fit together. And yeah, it was an absolutely incredible five and a half years. And yeah, as that very wise person six odd years ago said, I love the crazy and the mania and the building and the solving problems. So I joined Pento actually three months ago tomorrow to do the journey all over again.

6:38And yeah, having a wonderful time. And here the role is formerly Chief Operating Officer. And that was kind of a very conscious move. One of the interesting things about being a CFO in that scaling environment towards the end was that it became much more commercial. I would spend a lot of time with the sales and go-to-market team to kind of really understand how those pieces of the picture fit together. So here, you know, taking a very broad view, not just of like the financial and revenue goals of the business, but figuring out how that fits into product and engineering and knitting all of those pieces together.

7:20But yeah, maybe I'm a glass of punishment, but really enjoying it. Oh, absolutely. And I, okay, the reason I got into consulting, if I'm being very honest, is I like variety and the thought of doing the same thing day in, day out with the same company. so um i think we we might be uh peas in a pod so you're preaching to the converted yes we we like the excitement and the challenge you know if it's not hard work then it's not fun so yeah oh absolutely so so tell us a little bit about that shift because obviously you went through from you know a startup through to you know you know series a and series b by the sounds of it Series C actually.

8:02Wow. All the way through. So talk me about how the role changed through that time because that's a lot of steps in a very short space of time, isn't it? Yeah. Yeah. I mean, wildly, wildly different. I think up to about 100 people, everyone that I was mainly working with in, you know, at the time we called it, we called it ops because it was like a lovely vague banner under which all unowned things could go. We were all generalists. So, you know, we would genuinely each, and there were only maybe about three or four of us at that point in time out of a hundred. So, you know, we ran things really, really lean, but it meant that we lent into a lot of different things.

8:48You know, I'm not a technical person, but I would set up the laptops and, you know, run some of the IT systems and go through the information security certifications we'd do legal negotiations and then we'd go and hire people and we'd you know be the recruiter out there on LinkedIn search and we do all the bookkeeping and putting together the financial modeling um and so it was just incredibly broad in those early days and whilst that sounds like an unbelievable amount of work just the scale is just so much smaller if you think about a 20 person company um i sometimes joke that you know you could run a 20 person company on snail mail landline telephones like you could keep 20 people aligned like fairly in a fairly straightforward way um and it just is a case of just share all of the information all of the detail everyone just knows everything um so whilst it was a lot of different hats it was like a relatively simple I would say that that time was simpler in many ways, just because everyone almost has this almost perfect knowledge of everything.

9:58The company is very flat. I think, you know, between that kind of, and we were late to it, you know, we ran things extremely lean. But somewhere between like the 60 to 100 person mark, the network effects of just sharing all information on all things all the time just becomes massively impractical. and that's really when the role kind of evolved in in two different ways it evolved in the one different way of suddenly it didn't make we have you know enough things that were specialized enough to have people focused on those disciplines and so the roles at that point went from everyone having these vague operations title to someone is legal someone is people someone is finance and like around that time that changed um and then the role certainly from my position and building out that team um really shifted to being the person knitting together people who now did not have perfect context and it's a really interesting transition to take a business through um you know around that 50 person mark where the way you communicate just has to change dramatically um you know you can be very direct with decision making in tiny companies because you probably have the context and input from everyone around you even if you haven't gone and sought it just because you're in such constant communication regardless um at that point in time things start to become much more siloed and the way that information has to distribute to to stop actually And like, you know, this was the trap that some of the early leaders got into to stop those early leaders becoming bottlenecks for making all those decisions becomes about pushing that context down into specialized groups.

11:49So in some ways, even though by that point, you know, it's been like a couple of years and they've been managing for a while. That's the point when I think the role really became management rather than the doer of just a lot of stuff. And so that was really, really interesting. And then from like a financial perspective, taking it through the journey. And, you know, this year has been wild in like startup land and, you know, everything going on in the markets and the VC environment and who knows how it's going to pan out. Looking back, like that was a time of plenty. And it was really simple. The message was grow.

12:25Whatever you have to do to grow fast, whatever you have to spend to grow fast, just do it. Just, just grow. So, and like many finance people with, you know, accounting or actuarial backgrounds, I'm not the most like risk on person, naturally quite conservative. So that was, you know, another real learning point to learn how to take the right kinds of risks and to feel comfortable with that. But it was really a case of, you know, understanding how each part of the business fed into those growth drivers and where the levers were to turn them on. Making a shift formally to COO, it's much more of a partnership with the CEO and kind of the way we kind of structure it is there's, you know, as a business becomes more complex, there's like the external facing things, you know, with investors and the markets and PR and things like that.

13:23And the CEO very much has to be the external face of the business. And it is also the visionary, the person who comes up with the direction of travel, the way that the product should evolve. And effectively, I'm the person not looking outside so much, but very much looking in and saying, OK, give me that vision and I will go figure out how we do it. If that's in engineering, I'll go figure out how we do it in engineering. If it's in marketing, I'll go figure out what we need to do in marketing. if it's in finance we'll go figure out what we need to do in finance um but it's much more of kind of a partnership with the ceo to find ways to make those operational outcomes come to life yeah no and the cfo and ceo role especially in startups can often overlap can't they in terms of what you're doing so i can totally see that there's a there's a bit of sharing going on there as you guys grow um but how do you like do you have a cfo in place at the at the moment so so is that completely off of your your to-do list are you still at um looking after those aspects of finance at the moment i think even if i was in marketing i would find it hard not to meddle in finance somewhere and ever so no no we do have a wonderful head of finance um here um at pento and very much owns like a lot of the the financial piece where we overlap a lot um and for what it's worth I've never been, even in my formerly CFO days, never been on that kind of, you know, I think there's generally two paths in startup finance.

15:04One that is very on the controller side, you know, the BAU, the reporting, tax accounting, you know, getting all of that statutory and ordering and recording things stuff right and then it's very much the FP &A and the forecasting and planning and driving metrics I've very much always been on like that FP &A side of things um so where the head of finance and I really overlap a lot is when it comes to the financial model um and you know they will own you know the finance element and like the costs and the budgets and things like that and I will own like the outcomes that we're trying to drive Like here are like the parameters that I want the business to drive towards, some of which are financial, some of which are not.

15:52Here's the kind of ratio and way that we go through headcount planning and capacity planning and think this through. And here's how it ties back to sales or cost of sales or whatever part of the business that we're looking at. So I'm definitely further away from the finance side than as a CFO, where I was, you know, directly, even though it's not my area of expertise, certainly much more involved on that accountancy and cash collection and invoicing and things side of things because that was a really important element of that role as well absolutely and I think that's it's really interesting to that even in a startup when we say that the role is quite broad there's some clear specialities isn't there in there even in that role and what I am I was reading an article about this um only last night and i think it's a i think it's a hbr article there are a lot of different kinds of coo whereas you know cfo obviously always has finance often has legal as well not uncommon for it to have um like the people or hr side of the org as well sometimes has a few other things uh the coo role is much more varied and much less consistent company to company um and you'll see some companies in which a coo is you know what i would call is like you know not just um obviously owning the operations for the business but also the departmental owner of all operations gna functions but in many businesses as well the COO will also sometimes run the entire go-to-market organization or the product organization.

17:40So in many ways, it's quite nice. It's quite good in a startup because it leaves that door open to being that broader Swiss army knife. And come back to what you said about variety. It's a way to keep the door open for even more variety than even the CFO role in a startup has. Oh, awesome. And do you know what? there was a really interesting comment you made about the VC environment being a land of plenty and grow at all costs previously. How would you describe it at the moment? Because we are going through a really interesting time, both in terms of funding and the economic climate. How would you describe it at this point in time?

18:21Yeah, you know, I have a wonderful mentor who sometimes says to me, Sabrina, VC is the most conservative people that you'll ever meet. And, you know there's a lot of FOMO there's a lot of um information sharing um and what that means is that the sentiment gets shared as well um I think there is a lot of negativity in the VC landscape right now um and in times where there is negativity in like a conservative environment what everyone does is retreat retreat let's wait and see um the absolute creme de la creme of the companies that are spending nothing and growing incredibly well will always always always be able to raise um but the bar for fundraising has just gone way up um and companies are now much earlier in their journey having to think about efficiency as well as growth now don't get me wrong i don't think i've ever been uh in a meeting where i've put um a plan before the board where the response hasn't been, is it possible to spend less and grow more?

19:27Like, you know, that's always, I mean, always a dream and always something to aim for. But this is probably one of the first times in certainly the time that I've been in startup in the last six years where I'm hearing consistently across the board VCs actively saying, could you grow less fast perhaps but save more money and do it more efficiently um whereas i think the attitude before was just much more risk on money was cheaper it was out there valuations were insane and going through the roof um but they were really frenzied in like the last couple of years and you would hear about just these absolutely insane fundraising deals um it's probably over the long term a healthy correction but it's certainly a difficult one uh and i for one i'm you know very grateful that we raise kind of towards the end of the time of plenty rather than right now because i do feel for the startup out there who for years and years have had a very strong message of grow at all costs and as long as you're growing we will keep pouring money into this who have you know over the space of six months woken up to a very different world and one that they weren't necessarily preparing for.

20:50It used to be the case that around series A, you're still raising on the story. Series B, you'll get some questions about a couple of efficiency metrics, you know, maybe like your sales and marketing efficiency. Series C, like a lot more focus on, you know, maybe the gross margin and things like that. Those conversations have all shifted way, way, way earlier. For anyone not expecting it, it will have felt like it's come out of the blue that's a really interesting observation because i must admit like some a lot of the conversations i've had both on and off the podcast um have been about the how how it is changing how the landscape and you know if you're profit making like anything there's always room especially if you've got growth potential but if you're you're not and you're still at those early stages it's a lot tougher environment and the and the runway that you need as well to be able to get the funding is extended quite a bit whereas you could get away with 18 months maybe but that's not always the case these days yeah it's tough for companies that in the old world were just planning for things to be business as usual and to be raising certainly in the first or second quarter of this year um just because it will have felt like a really really abrupt change And, you know, a lot of startups typically skew young.

22:09A lot of the people that I work with today or that I worked with at Tessian won't have in their working lives gone through something like this. You know, they were maybe starting their career around the time of the 2008 financial crisis. Very few were working around the time of the 2000 like dot com crash. and interest rates have been so low for such a long time, the concept that money costs something is really new to a lot of people in this world. And it's an adjustment. And I think we're seeing a more extreme part of it right now because there's still so much variability. You know, no one's really sure where it's going to get to.

22:55I think in a year's time, once we've had time to adjust to the new world and the situation is clearer, that sense of panic of, you know, oh my God, we don't know anything that's going on. We have no idea where it can go. The spectrum of possible scenarios is so broad, will come down. And even if that's in a much worse place in like a global financial situation than it is today, there'll be much more certainty and understanding and normalization of it at that point. But it's come on so fast and for many people so unexpected. We are still in that panic point of time. And I think it's reflected in a lot of the ways that fundraisers are happening right now.

23:40And a lot of those investments are being treated. And the world will adjust and there will be a new normal. But we're just going through a point of time where we don't know where that new normal is going to bottom out at and that means that everyone's even more conservative than they probably will be once we get to that point so yeah you know it's going to be a really interesting year um and the thing that i would say is that you know every company out there has to definitely be scenario planning definitely be taking measures to adapt to the new world that you find yourself in but also sort of have that that mindset of wherever that new normal stabilizes out at like there will be a new normal coming but you know to just be ready to weather like a year that's probably going to feel quite turbulent yeah and i don't worry but it feels like you know that when we first learned about covid that whole what is actually going to happen we know something's going to happen like you say we don't know how bad it's going to be or how good it's going to be you know like if you think about you know if things things could turn around quite quickly potentially in the next couple of years but there's that like that uncertainty about the long how long it's going to last and I and I think there's an interesting piece um you got you have to feel sorry for some of the uh the startups your finance people out there are trying to plan they've had covid then they've had a uh inflationary crisis now now we've got a funding crisis this it's it's you know it's all gonna it's gonna make a stronger you know a lot stronger finance people but it's a it's a really challenging environment you know especially for startups I think they do sometimes get the shorter end of the stick I think it's always the way though um and I think one of the things to remember is that in a kind of evolutionary mindset it is healthy for not all startups to survive um especially when we think you know certainly in the UK but More broadly in the EU, you know, the startup ecosystem is much less mature than, say, Silicon Valley.

25:44And it's actually been in times of turbulence that some of the most amazing companies have been founded. And yes, it's a bit of a winnering process. but actually it's an opportunity to build some really strong foundations and to funnel talent towards companies that have a really good shot of being those European equivalents of you know the Googles the Apples the Facebook absolutely and I also think it's a really great time for that good finance talent to shine as well because actually it's like anything times of crisis finance becomes the focus and it becomes, it comes to the fore and is listened to perhaps a little bit more when money's nice and easily available.

26:29So I do think there is an opportunity, especially in the startup world for that, like you say, that experienced finance talent to be appreciated and listened to and taken forward. So yeah, and it's not all doom and gloom. I think there is a danger, isn't there? We all sit here and go, oh, the world is ending. Maybe, you know, in a few years, depending what you believe about global warming. But, you know, we've got, we've got, there is, there is still opportunity out there. And I think it's, it's easy to forget. Yeah, absolutely. And I forget, I forget who the quote is attributed to, but I do love the quote, never let a good crisis go to waste.

27:08Yes, I have. I like that one as well. Yeah, we are. I will, I will, I will Google it when we get off. We will attribute it to the right person. never less a good crisis to waste. We'll have that as the tagline for this episode, I think. Yeah. So, so like, let's put this well. So, you know, as you as a COO of, you know, of a startup and having been a CFO, a startup CFO, what is your advice to other startup CFOs or those going through, what would you be prioritizing going into this and in this current environment? You know, the instinct says just preserve cash, but I think that is, and that is obviously true.

27:49You need to make sure that you have cash that is going to get you to a date when, you know, you have hit a milestone that you have confidence means that you can raise more capital, maybe more expensive capital than you would have been raising like a year ago. but um but you need to have confidence in being able to get to that uh scenario plan around that assume that costs go up assume that the price that you have to sell for goes down because everyone's more cash constrained soon churn goes up um but also take this you know with that you know never let a good crisis go to waste as an opportunity to really look at the structure of your org and understand where there are opportunities there to make the organization stronger.

28:39One of the debates I used to have with lots of people all the time as a CFO would be someone would come to me and say, hey, Sabrina, if I had an extra engineer, I could build this product faster and building the product faster would be wonderful. Shouldn't we do that? It's a no-brainer. or if I had an extra CS person, we could look after our customers more and looking after our customers is so important. It's a no-brainer. It's a wonderful thing for us to do. Or if I had an extra accountant, we could close the books faster and that means everyone will get information faster and isn't that wonderful and isn't it a no-brainer?

29:18And in isolation, almost all of these things feel like no-brainers and the sum of it is you get a really bloated organization. and it's not just a case of having lots of bodies around like every single one of those person increases the network effect of a business makes it harder to stay aligned make silos more likely uh is management overhead it means that you know for every you know 100 people you have in the company you're going to have more performance issues and you know all kinds of dramas and things to resolve when you're hiring that much it's a huge amount of overhead for people to be spending time doing all of those constant interview practices and the larger an organization you are the more uh inherent attrition you know just percentage wise the absolute number of attritions that you will have and people that you need to backfill um there's a lot of cost to running like a larger organization that is not monetary.

30:21It is in terms of effort and alignment and focus. And I would really say, you know, especially for tech businesses and tech businesses are just people businesses. It's one of the reasons why I love looking after the people function. Because really, if you look after the people function, you own every driver in the business. You know, you own all of the talent that's doing all of the R &D, all of the sales, all of the efficiency, all of the G &A work because it all comes back to the people that you have but really assessing what are those traits or values or principles that are going to see us through this point in time and make us really strong what is the team that we need and see and to go back to like square one and you know put aside the organization structure that you have what is the organization structure that you would have if you were designing this from scratch today, you know, in terms of how you layer things or matrix things or have reporting lines or like how many layers of management that you have.

31:24And really kind of look at that organization and figure out where you could get to. And like now is a good time to do that exercise because people will understand that at this inflection point, companies need to change and adapt to have the best chance of survival. But to revisit that exercise and to get your org in a good shape and to really, really, really question. Do certain roles or team sizes add the right value? Workload is, I like to think of it as like a gas. Like, you know, it'll fill the volume of time of resource that you have. If you have 100 people, you will find 100 people's worth of work to do.

32:07But maybe only 60 of those people's worth of work is actually the work worth doing. So it's a really good time to figure out actually what does matter. Where should the focus be? What are the traits and the principles that we need to be able to work in this way? And what is the organization that we need? And while the talent market will cool off a little bit and it's slightly less crazy and insane than it has been over the last 18 months, while there's maybe less net new hiring to do because you're conserving some cash and you've got the time to go through some of these change management processes, and this doesn't necessarily mean reductions in force.

32:51it can mean making a conscious decision of okay when these teams start to naturally a trick down here's how we'll regrow them or here's what where we would backfill this role to change the structure here's maybe where we'd unwind some layers of management to make things more flat now is a great time um you know whenever you have like lots of change better to get all of the change out the way in one go so like if there's environmental change and you're doing organizational change just get all of your change out of the way do it all now like obviously take the time to manage it really well um but certainly in tech businesses I I don't think you can ever go wrong by looking to your people and making sure you have the right people in the right seats at the right time to kind of steer you through what you need to do.

33:42Now I think that's really I like your comment about um there's all you know it doesn't if you've got people they will find work you know any and let's be honest if they're good people they will probably do lots of value adding work but like you say there is of that you know there's always a job for somebody to do you can always find something but should they actually be doing it that's a yeah I've got the um yeah I'm trying to think of there there is a uh there's a quote that goes with that I'm trying to remember another saying we've got a few of those in today's podcast but I think it's you know it's it's not that those roles wouldn't add value is it the value that is really important and I think it just comes down to focus there are so many things that any company could do but if you do have to be more lean and focus on doing a couple of things really well where is all the stuff that you know maybe makes you feel really good like you know having really knit up buttoned up reporting or whatever it happens to be that's certainly for someone who's very kind of processy and opsy just makes me feel lovely when I have a nice dashboard and it's all automated and all the rest but actually is that the most important thing for someone to spend their time on and what would be the business impact if that activity didn't happen or what would be the positive business impact at that time was redistributed elsewhere.

35:06Startups haven't had to, I think the best startups always have had a sense of, you know, a need to focus and not to take on too much at any one point in time. But I think all startups really need to evaluate where is their focus right now. I think that's a really good shout. And like you said, there are things that each individual company needs to have for whatever stage they are. And there is a, you know, and that whole thing about bootstrapping and actually you do you need to think like a bootstrap up until a certain point there are times when you need to invest and do that but yeah every really thinking about where that value where that investment should be I think this is this is going to be the year of hard choices yeah and I think that's that is the challenge yeah hard choices but you know right choice it's none of these things are ever easy as i said it's been a land of plenty for a while and now now startup music's gonna start really earning their dollars yeah well absolutely and i think there is a piece isn't there right we want a really strong economy of startups that can become scale-ups that can become the next meta the next google the next you know and the next big thing and in order to do that you do need to have some challenge and i I think it's always been about our productivity levels in the UK aren't as strong as they should be.

36:28And that's something that is a really interesting piece. So, yeah. No. So, loads of great tips. I think this is like a startup CFO's dream. They're sitting here going, right, okay, right. Tick, tick. Yeah. And it's food for thought, isn't it? Whether you're a startup CFO, whether you're a larger organization, because I think sometimes those larger organizations, people can hide. things can you know roles can nestle in amongst teams and you know is everything is a as efficient as effective as it should be and I think there is a difference and I'll just pick out that about what you're saying about roles but I think it's about people like have you got the right people and I I'm sometimes a bit of a you know do you have roles versus people or people that you fit roles to especially in those smaller organizations an interesting piece in that I think yeah I mean I was chatting to a founder that I'm friendly with today about someone that we mutually know who is just the most wonderful, wonderful human being, you know, discussing whether this particular founder had a role for this person.

37:32And I think there was a thought once upon a time of just, just get good people in the door and just, you know, put the elbows out and get them in. But it was really interesting having this conversation. And this is someone, you know, that I'm personally very attached to you and think is is absolutely wonderful and it was it came to the point of you know you really need to think if you the the shape of the role that you need fits this person because they are wonderful but they might not be that particular role um it's a very different conversation to you know 18 months ago we would just be like wow someone's awesome's on the market just get them in just get them in and we'll find things for for them to do i think sort of when you're a tiny tiny company you know and i mean you know sub 20 people you can do that because apart from some very specialized things such as say you know engineering where a very particular skill set is needed you just need kind of really smart capable people and like you know as long as they're able to figure things out you can you can run it like that but yeah when you're when you're tiny you can you can run it in that way um and just get good people in the door but I think any larger organization now needs to really think and it's not either rule it has to be the right role but also the right person in that role um and who that right person is is going to look very different in different companies no I think that's a great that's a great shout and especially given the the whole conversation we had about you know watching every you know every I won't say every penny but every bit of investment that you make whether that's in people whether that's technology like really asking those tough questions yeah the one thing that I will say and I forget who I was speaking to about this um only recently but um it is tempting in these situations to cut costs at all at any cost uh if that makes sense and certainly if you're a crisis point and you just simply need to preserve cash like absolutely if you're not quite there but you're trying to be prudent definitely think about um the fact that costs are not just monetary like there is a time cost an effort cost if the alternative to having say that piece of productivity software is having another person or something not being done unless you were in such a crisis that it's a case of you have to preserve every penny i definitely don't think it means that companies need to stop buying or doing anything because yeah everyone money is top of mind for people right now um but it's it's very easy to to jump to the false assumption that by cutting costs you are definitely moving in a more efficient direction and i think that's really important it's about efficiency unless of course you know you've got like three months of runway you desperately need to save every penny In which case, you know, shed literally everything.

40:40But I think the key thing to take away is focus and efficiency. And sometimes efficiency means you do need to spend a few extra dollars to achieve that. Yeah. And I do think there is something around, like, are you hampering yourself for the future? Because we don't know what that future looks like, do we? and that ability to be agile and to be able to grow fast again once the market conditions are in a place where we can. And I think, you know, I think there is something to be said for that, some great observations. So I have literally picked your brains for about 14 minutes on everything startup CFO, everything startups, and it's been absolutely wonderful.

41:20But the one thing I haven't asked you, I'm given, you know, opportunity to talk about is your current place of work. So tell us about Pento. What are you guys doing? Tell us about the organization. Yeah, so Pento is making payroll painless. Funnily enough, the way I came across Pento was my last company, about 300 people, say about 150 of those were in the UK, probably across the whole company. if you added up all of the people team's time the finance team's time collecting information checking information sending it to the outsourcer getting it back correcting the endless mistakes or lack of context there answering questions from from employees about why is my pay changed from month to month oh your tax code xyz probably about four days worth of people's time um and even a CFO, three hours of my time every month was spent just checking the payroll stuff.

42:19I liken it to, you know, that old adage about, you know, if you drop a frog in boiling water, it will jump out. But if you put it in cold water and you slowly boil it around it, you know, it'll sit there and you'll boil the frog. That's what payroll process is going from a tiny company when, you know, you're 10 people, it's really easy to do 10 manual payments. You know, there's hardly any changes month to month it's fine working with the outsourcer um it gradually boils around you to this point where you have this frankenstein process where for 300 people which is not a massive company it is taking four days worth of people's time just to get your people paid every single month um and yeah pentos exists to to solve that problem uh so we're currently only live in near the UK market, but we integrate with all of the actual sources of truth of people's data.

43:13So your HR system, your accounting system, and we pull and push the information there automatically with no cutoff dates. And yeah, take payroll from the work of days to the work of minutes. And that's what we're doing. And yeah, you know, it's a great problem to be solving, not least because, you know, if a company exists, they're going to have people and those people going to need to get paid. Absolutely. I think you've got a job in sales as well as CAO, to be very fair. But that is one of the other many, many hats. Yeah, I've got a big wardrobe of different hats. Absolutely. Brilliant. Well, thank you so much, Sabrina.

43:54It's been absolutely wonderful talking to you and learning about, obviously, your journey, your top tips for those going through this weird and wonderful world of startups, funding rounds at this point in time. and if people want to learn more about Pento about yourself what's the best way to sort of reach out and and do that yeah yeah so if you're looking to find out about Pento it's Pento p-e-n-t-o dot i-o is the website and if you're looking for me just well type in Sabrina COO startups into LinkedIn I won't make you try and score my surname but I'm sure I'll pop up add me on LinkedIn, always happy to loop around with people and yeah, to give back to the community and help where I can.

44:36For those listening, if you're interested, I'll pop the links in to the show notes along as usual with a quick summary, the cliff notes of this conversation. So thank you so much, Sabrina. It's been absolutely wonderful talking to you. And guys, you know, usual, usual piece. If you, if you've got any questions, anything you think I should have asked and I forgotten, let me know. And you never know, I might even send them on to Sabrina and she'll give us the answers. So I really appreciate the time today, Sabrina. Let us know if you've liked this episode. Don't forget to like, share, leave us a review.

45:07You know, always makes my day when I see a review. So take care, guys, and I'll speak to you soon. Hey, Google, what's the best accounting software for my business? Give it a couple of years and I bet you she'll be able to answer you pretty accurately. But for now, it's still one of the few questions Google can't give you an answer for. But we can. Take our free quiz and find out which Sage product is the right fit for your business. Just head to itassolutions.co.uk.