Fundraising is not the time to train.
It’s the time to close. 🔒
Fundraising is not the time to train. It’s the time to close. 🔒
Too many companies make the mistake of hiring a full-time CFO with a great resume—but no reps under real pressure. Fundraising isn’t finance theory. It’s execution. It’s defending your 📊 model to a room of sharp-elbowed investors. It’s telling your story with numbers that hold up under diligence—not crumble in a spreadsheet.
That’s why I always recommend companies bring in an experienced interim CFO during a raise.
Why?
Because the right interim CFO has already been through it—20, 30, 40 times. They’ve seen the questions before. They’ve sat across from the toughest VCs, growth funds, and strategics. They know how to model 📈, how to position, and how to close. ✅
More importantly—they know what investors are really looking for:
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Is your market big enough? (TAM, growth, urgency to win)
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Is your product differentiated—and can it scale?
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Are your unit economics credible?
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Is this team the one to bet on?
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What does the path to return look like—for them?
You can’t fake your way through those answers. And you definitely can’t afford to figure them out in the room.
A full-time CFO with potential? Valuable later. But learning how to fundraise on the job, with your company’s survival or valuation at stake, is a risk you don’t need to take. ❌
Hire the battle-tested operator.
Let them lead the raise.
Then hire your long-term CFO to run the post-close engine. 🚀
If you’re raising capital 💰, you don’t need a full-time CFO. You need a wartime CFO. ⚔️