From a spreadsheet of ranges to the numbers the board and investors relied on

6 months

of runway added through cost discipline and financial controls

1 model

the source of truth for monthly, board, and investor reporting and fundraising

Budgets by need

set against available cash, not by who asked first

COMPANY

Bindle Systems, a healthtech and digital credentialing startup

ROLE

Head of People & Culture and Head of Finance, reporting to the CEO

PERIOD

2021 TO 2022

AREA OF WORK

Investor and board readiness

The situation

I joined Bindle Systems to lead People & Culture. During the hiring process, the CEO asked me to take on Finance as well, with a direct report.

The financial model I inherited was an Excel file of ranged values. It was not possible to tell which numbers belonged to which part of the business, and none of the department leaders had a budget.

What I did

1. Rebuilt costs from the bottom up, leader by leader. Sat with each department head to break their spend into payroll, contractors and other non-payroll costs, insurance by location, taxes, tech tools, and other business costs, and to find where their money was actually going.

2. Fixed what the rebuild exposed. The company was hiring outside the tri-state area, and its insurance was overcharging for out-of-state employees. I renegotiated to a better rate.

3. Rebuilt revenue and tied everything to one P&L. Reconstructed revenue actuals and projections, then linked the cost and revenue summaries to a central P&L through formulas, so a change anywhere flowed through to the numbers leadership and the board saw.

4. Put budgeting on a strategic footing. With reliable numbers, budgets could be set against available cash and prioritized by need. Before, money went to whoever asked first.

5. Ran the data room. Managed the data room for the CEO's conversations with investors and potential acquirers.

The outcome

The rebuilt model reconciled to within a few thousand dollars of bank balances. It became the company's source of truth for monthly reporting, board reporting, investor reporting, and fundraising, and it supported a further raise after the rebuild. Combined with tighter cost discipline and financial controls, the work extended the company's runway by six months. Bindle Systems was later acquired by iDen2.

WHY IT TRAVELS

Many startups reach their next raise with financials no one can trace line by line, and investors notice in diligence. A model built from the bottom up, with every cost owned by a named leader, turns finance from a monthly scramble into a tool for running the company.