Sam could build a spreadsheet but not a financial story. A CFO persona walked the model line by line — and taught the logic behind every cell.
Sam runs operations at an early-stage company. With a raise coming, the founder asked him to build the first real financial model. He was comfortable in spreadsheets — but a three-statement model, with the income statement, balance sheet and cash flow all linked, was a different animal. And he’d have to defend every number.
Hiring a fractional CFO for a week wasn’t in the budget. So he rented one by the month instead.
“My statements wouldn’t tie out, and I had a circular reference I couldn’t kill. Worse — I couldn’t tell which assumptions actually mattered to an investor.”
Spreadsheet open, Sam asked the persona to look at the model with him.
“I didn’t just get a model that works. I finally understand why it works.”
The model tied out, the circular reference was gone, and Sam could flex the three assumptions live in the meeting. Investors trusted the numbers because the person presenting them clearly understood every line — and that person was Sam, not a consultant.
For the model, the raise, the board pack.