PHOENIX, ARIZONA – January 15, 2019 — Left Mind, LLC, a management advisory company, announced today the launch of subscription-based virtual financial management services focused on serving small-to-medium businesses in the B2B Software as a Service (SaaS) market.
Left Mind is now uniquely positioned to provide SaaS businesses with strategic virtual financial management services built specifically to serve this dynamic industry. Before today, industry-specific services like these have been available only through large, high-priced consulting firms.
“SaaS businesses live on the leading edge of technological advancements and industry disruption. It’s important to offer financial management services dedicated to delivering the same level of innovation and vision this industry is known for creating,” stated Left Mind Founder, Jon Ferlise.
More businesses than ever are adopting SaaS solutions, but there remains a significant portion of businesses that have yet to fully convert their internal business applications to SaaS. The SaaS market is anticipated to grow at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 21.20% over the next five years, according to a Research and Markets report. With this rise and growth in the SaaS industry, it’s becoming more and more important for SaaS businesses to adopt a custom approach to financial management as they scale.
As SaaS companies grow — either organically or through third party funding — Left Mind’s boutique approach will offer significant benefits over traditional consulting firms. By specializing in the SaaS industry, Left Mind is able to leverage their knowledge and insight to better serve their customers.
In addition, Left Mind provides all virtual — offsite/remote — consulting services. This creates tremendous efficiencies in how services are offered and where time and effort is focused during their consulting engagements. Through use of video conferencing and SaaS business applications, Left Mind has built a versatile, extremely effective way to offer remote financial management services.
Left Mind Founder, Jon Ferlise, is a certified public accountant who has developed his background and professional experience over the span of 20+ years working in various financial management roles that have helped him build a unique skillset with expertise in financial analysis, planning, mergers and acquisitions, capital asset acquisitions, secured and unsecured financings, financial reporting, corporate accounting, and more.
Most recently, Jon led a successful consulting engagement with a rapidly growing SaaS company that specialized in building online community software. His work there contributed to the successful sale of the company at a significant premium above management’s original target price.
Left Mind is offering three levels of service to B2B SaaS businesses. Each level of service will build a financial foundation to support the company as it grows and matures.
Startup
Most startups are keenly focused on building a book of business around their new product offerings while providing world-class service to those new customers. Finance activities in startups usually consist of setting up a bank account, collecting revenues and making sure to pay the bills. Left Mind helps startup companies focus on financial management early in the business development cycle. This sets a business up to be able to pivot in the future as opportunities arise.
The Startup package includes services to build a core financial foundation for any early stage SaaS business:
- Accounting system review – Review, evaluate, and update accounting policies, processes, and procedures
- Financial reporting review – Review, evaluate, and update financial reporting process
- Custom financial reports – Build specialized reports, such as business segment reporting, to provide management with detailed insight into business operations and cash flow requirements
- KPIs/metrics tracking – Track data and prepare monthly reports on business KPIs/metrics, such as churn rates, CAC, recurring revenue, LTV, and more
Growth
High-growth stage businesses are typically hyper-focused on building off their early stage success. This stage often requires founders and business leaders to begin to delegate duties while they remain engaged in managing growth. At this point, focus on financial management should already be in place but many times there hasn’t been enough time to allocate to properly building the finance function.
The Growth package delivers the same financial services included in the Startup package (above), while offering management additional tools that provide valuable business insights to manage growth and strategic opportunities:
- Performance reports – Monthly reports focused on specific business functions and departments, used to gain an understanding of the performance of those areas within the overall business
- Management dashboards – Reporting dashboards customized to include key financial data and information in an easily digestible, quickly referenced format
- Forecasting – Custom financial forecasts using management assumptions and input to project costs and revenues, and used to support and build the overall business plan
Strategic
Once a company has experienced high growth it’s natural for the management team to begin to look for more strategic business opportunities. The strategic phase of a company is typically where the company will look to their market for horizontal or vertical growth opportunities, or perhaps an exit. At this phase, if a company doesn’t already have a CFO or other key financial advisor, it becomes paramount to layer in strategic financial management to support business decisions.
The Strategic package builds seamlessly off the services from the Startup and Growth packages, layering in additional services that will help position businesses for any type of strategic opportunity:
- Strategic planning – Analyze internal activities, markets, competition, and both short- and long-term goals to support strategic transactions and to build an executable business plan
- Strategic transaction support – Provide analytic support for mergers, acquisitions and/or sale of the business
- Capital financing support – Provide analyses to support financing activities with potential investors
- Board meeting support – Assist with board meeting presentations of financial strategies, business plans, strategic options, and any other financial/strategic opportunities
All service levels include monthly virtual meetings at varying intervals, as well as unlimited online and phone support. In-person meetings can be included for an additional fee.
For pricing and a complete list of services offered by Left Mind, please visit our website.
Contact:
Jon Ferlise
jonferlise@leftmind.com
480-616-0613
