SaaS CEO and CFO Collaboration - with Godard Abel and Chad Gold, CEO and CFO G2

**Ray Rike** (0:00)
This episode of the Metrics that Measure Up podcast is from a session at SAS Metrics Palooza 24 If you'd like to listen to other speakers and gain access to your presentations from SAS Metrics Palooza, please visit benchmarkit.ai, that's benchmarkit, that's with an it.ai, and go to events and select SAS Metrics Palooza 24 Hello, I'm Ray Rike, Founder and CEO of Benchmarkit, and your host of the Metrics that Measure Up podcast. We talked to a wide variety of the top B2B SAS and Cloud thought leaders, CEOs, executives, investors, and people just like you to discuss the metrics and benchmarks they use to make metrics-informed and benchmark-validated decisions. Now, on to today's show. I'm so happy to announce our kickoff speakers. That is Godard Abel, the founder and CEO of G2, and his CFO, Chad Gold. Welcome, Chad. Welcome, Godard.

**Godard Abel** (1:12)
And great to be here with you, Ray. Thanks for having us.

**Chad Gold** (1:14)
Yeah, that's right.

**Ray Rike** (1:15)
Great.

**Chad Gold** (1:15)
Great to be here with you again.

**Ray Rike** (1:18)
So we're going to have so much dense content and slides, but I wanted to kick off today with the discussion between a CEO and CFO of a leading company in the industry. And the first thing I'd like to talk about, Godard and Chad, because I know that you've only been working together for a few months now. When is the right time to bring in a CFO into your business?

**Godard Abel** (1:45)
I would say I waited too long. And G2 now we're over 100 million ARR. And actually probably for at least a couple of years, my board was saying, oh, you really need a CFO. And honestly, I didn't really know what that meant until I hired Chad. So I don't know about the exact threshold, but if I were to shoot from the hip, I probably wish I'd done around 50 million.

**Ray Rike** (2:10)
Godard, that seems even a little large. I know a lot of companies will bring in at least a head of finance, an SVP of finance and that 20 million or above. Chad, you've been a multiple-time CFO. What's your perspective on this?

**Chad Gold** (2:26)
Yeah, I mean, I would say, one, G2 did have a head of finance. And so to give Godard some credit, he had somebody that was in the seat for, since the early days of the business. G2 is the second company that I've joined as the first CFO. And, you know, what I would say is it's probably size is one. I think the triggers are the complexity of the business. So as you hit a certain scale, as you start to go global, where you start to have to think about certain business processes you hadn't thought about before. And then really another trigger is the investors that you have in the business, like the capital that you put behind it. Because, you know, oftentimes, to go to its point, when you get institutional investors, there will come a series, whether it's an A or B or C, whatever it might be, where they really insist on you bringing in somebody to help steer the allocation of capital with the business and to help the CEO really partner and scale the business together.

**Ray Rike** (3:26)
And maybe I can ask Godard, so you had a head of finance that you worked with for many, many years. Were there certain attributes of the business that you're like, it's time to bring on a CFO with the experience and background of Chad Gold?

**Godard Abel** (3:42)
Yes, and I did have Joe Stuckel for many years, and he did an incredible job with us almost from day one. I think he was literally like our first accounting and finance hire when we had almost no revenue. And obviously, he did a great job, and we were able to raise $257 million all the way through his Series D working with Joe. And frankly, on the accounting, reporting, finance side, we were in excellent shape. We could get through due diligence in a week, and we were already working with PwC. So I'd say the reporting, accounting side was really strong. But I think the big difference I'm seeing with Chad and as CFO is someone that really helps you shape the business. And really also works with all my other leaders, our CRO, Eric, our Chief Product Officer, Sarah, our CMO, Sidney, but really works with all the other leaders to really shape the business and shape the plan. And that to me is probably the biggest difference. Whereas before I was probably doing that myself more. But I think that to me is a difference is, Chad's a really, like I said, I think you also like to say, hey, you like to shape the future, not report on the past. And obviously both are important. But I think that to me is a big difference is you having a business partner and Chad really helps you make every business a shipping and shape the whole plan. And then you obviously realize the plan.