👍 Here are 3 ways we use AI, and more...

This is your monthly dose of Full Send.

Greetings 👋. It's our March edition of No Half Sends and this Friday is International Women’s Day. One massive tip of the cap to all the incredible women out there. This week you need to go high five, express your gratitude, and hug those amazing women in your life. We’re glad you’re here following along.

To frame our update: we help growth companies elevate their financial data through tech-forward accounting and finance services.

A client this week said: “…There were lots of things to unravel, and [Full Send] came into the process with good ideas and adapted quickly to the pieces that are unique to our operation.”

Let’s Dive In 👇.

💥 TL;DR: Full Send

1. Accounting for an exit 🛑
2. Here are 3 ways that we’re using AI (and you can too) ✌️
3. What percentages of biz <500 EE’s have a CFO? 😮
4. First Foundry, now Techstars 😢
5. Hiring & Times Square 🍻

☝️ Accounting for an Exit

Did you know that the lack of efficient internal operations, processes, and financial literacy can result in a 5-15% discount to your valuation in an exit scenario?

When you think about your internal finance operations and the goal of a future exit, you don’t often think about how your accountant can support a higher multiple upon exit. More often than not, your accountant isn’t thinking that either. We are.

In one scenario over the last month, we’ve been working on a complete re-wire of a client’s internal invoicing and collections process. We’re moving from a highly manual and dispersed process to one that is systematized and connected. The client is now able to save ~2-4 hours per month, they have clear visibility into their cash collection / AR, and can now generate consistent data around product sales, margins, and growth. Do you think being equipped with this information will enable them to achieve a more successful exit? We think so.

Accounting advisory support can yield multiples of your spend — if you invest wisely.

🔊 Here are a few ways that we’re using AI.

If your not a native AI company, you may poke and prod around the various tools available today, consume ‘influencer’ AI content and feel like you’re behind on AI adoption. Here’s the good news - Google still has around 50x the monthly traffic that ChatGPT generates. There is still such a small portion of the population that’s utilizing ChatGPT as a go-to for work/life/search. You’re doing just fine.

Here are three ways that we use AI at Full Send:

• AI transactional tools. We utilize SOC-2 compliant tools that allow our accounting team to more easily detect consistency, anomalies, as well as gain recommendations on classifications at the transactional level.
• ChatGPT for formula writing. Yeah, we still use google sheets and excel for specific tasks. We improve the flow of data and automation by utilizing ChatGPT to help with writing and auditing formulas in a document. Tip: Be very specific with what you want. Prompt the exact sheet names and cells in order to get an output that you can easily copy/paste into your desired cell.
• Process Documentation >>
• If you pay for ChatGPT…. Download the app, hit the headphones button, and speak directly to ChatGPT through your headphones - Have an in depth conversation about your processes and continue to prompt it until you have enough information to create a process map or outline with the various steps, systems, actions, and dependencies.

While we are excited to continue building upon AI as we move forward, we are not utilizing any client data or PII to test AI tools. If our vendor bar for security is met, we may be more open to testing with existing data in the future, but be very cautious with protected data when exploring new tools in the AI landscape ✊.

Give us feedback on what’s working, what could use improvement, and how we can better serve our clients, community, and industry - howdy@fullsendfinance.com.

🚀 Need to know: Startups

> The brakes are still on for venture funding. If you’ve raised any VC in the last 2 years and are looking to raise again in 2024, you may be feeling this too. Broadly speaking, a flat round for most Bridge/Series A seeking companies is considered a W. (Crunchbase Monthly Recap)

> Here are a TON of interesting Startup statistics for 2024…

• 5 year survival rate for new businesses is 51.3%
• 1 in 3 begin their small business with less than $5,000
• Around 18% of small businesses (<500 EEs) have a CFO
• (Embroker’s 106 Startup Statistics)

> To hire or not to hire? Nearly Every single day on LinkedIn, I see a headline that says “[company name] to lay off X,XXX employees.” Data from Carta shows that 2023 was a rare year where more employees departed startups than joined them. Eeek!

We are seeing startups begin to hire again, albeit more cautiously in 2024. An example of this is in 2022 we may have seen a startup hire 2 Account Executives to let them ‘compete’ with one another and now there is more time on the front end to hire 1 high caliber Account Executive.

Cred: Carta’s Data Minute, by Peter Walker for the data & graphic.

Are you fundraising/hiring? Know someone who is? We want to feature those in our network who are seeking capital, connections, or resources. Reach out to us at howdy@fullsendfinance.com for more information!

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🏗️ Colorado Startups: Our Backyard

> Well, it was fun while it lasted. Techstars is moving out of CO and it doesn’t feel good. Techstars is moving in a new direction, Techstars 2.0, and it’s a direction without Boulder. Or Seattle. They’re moving on to what they hope are greener (and more coastal) pastures in order to seek “a deeper infrastructure of VC communities, large talent pools, and significant numbers of other early and late stage startups.” Here’s the brief and a little bit more on Techstars 2.0. It feels like that high-school sweetheart romance that has lasted for decades…is now breaking up. First Foundry, now Techstars. Sad.

> Speaking of Techstars, congrats to Gritly on their exit to InterviewIA. Gritly participated in the 2022-2023 Workforce Development Accelerator with TS and was recently acquired by InterviewIA in order to build an end-to-end internal marketplace for talent. Congrats to both sides! (InteviewIA acquires Gritly)

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Help share No Half Sends 🙏

Wouldn’t the accounting, finance, and startup world be a better place if more people had access to top-notch accounting and relatable humans? Take a minute to share our newsletter with your friends—They’ll thank you for having access to accountants with flair. Sub here.

👉 If you’d like to be featured or have a message that would be helpful for our community, please let us know:

• If you’d like to broadcast your current or upcoming fundraise
• If you’ve shipped a new product or launched in market
• If you’re hiring and want to spread the word

We want to amplify voices of the builders, backers, and servant leaders. Reach out!

🏔️ Sending it in the Wild

> We brought on a new Accounting Manager - Jesus Ortega. Give him a warm welcome - new hire announcement here!

> If you’re intrigued by the thought of non-dilutive capital and/or want to learn more about Venture Debt, check out our recent podcast episode of Building in the Wild with Brian Parks, Founder of Bigfoot Capital.

> Around Valentine’s Day, our friends at Ramp showed some serious PDA by showing some love to us on a NY Times Square billboard. Thank you to our Ramp squad! Sending it in NYTS 👇

Clickbait: Here’s some of the coolest AI Tech from CES 2024. I could use an AI baby cry interpreter right about now…

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✌️ Roman @ Full Send

Why Full Send? We’re on a mission to elevate financial data through high quality accounting and finance services, building more knowledgeable and engaged team members, and engaging in our industry to move accounting and finance forward.

Send us your feedback at howdy@fullsendfinance.com and help us stay as sendy as humanly possible. We’re ready to listen.