Summary

TheBackbone podcast features Axonify's CFO Dave Pooley, discussing his journey to finance leadership, the financing aspects of tech companies like Axonify, including how to manage the capital efficiency of an early stage startup and the evolving finance role as companies mature and grow.

Abstract

The most recent episode of "The Backbone" podcast — episode 27, welcomes Dave Pooley, the CFO of Axonify. This discussion delves into Dave's impressive trajectory within the field of finance, with mentions of his previous contributions at Miovision and his early career in Banff's public accounting realm. At Axonify, a company designed to bolster employee learning in driving measurable business growth, Dave oversees core financial and accounting aspects with a keen eye towards efficacy and helping technological innovators to flower in the market. Much is to be gleaned from his insights surrounding high-level considerations a finance leader must focus upon, particularly in overcoming the hurdle of securing large enterprise client contracts, navigating market considerations, and traversing the delicate balance beam between financing rounds and short to long-term economic solidity. His contribution was capped with helpful commentary on managing hiring patterns and scaling a software's operational processes so crucial for startup survival against metrics such as Churn or CAC. Despite naming several go-tos, Pooley questions the credibility offered online in this domain reflective of a finnicky yet highly analytic behind-the-scenes insight into the tech financial landscape.

Opinions

Dave Pooley specializes in guiding early-stage technology companies to sustainable growth, with an emphasis on capital efficient methods.
His journey in technology finance included stints at Miovision, Fibernetics, and a role at the Kitchener-Waterloo accelerator, Communitech.
Pooley values the importance of aligning finance functions with overall company strategy, particularly in serving enterprise markets.
He underscores the importance of balancing the ever-changing priorities of a CFO, especially as a company scales from a small startup to a larger entity with enhanced market presence.
Pooley raised doubts about the reliability of online resources for financial wisdom in the startup and growth phases, advocating a more tailored search for insight and knowledge specifically carved out for technology corporations aiming to carve an industry niche rapidly

The Backbone — Episode 27: Raising a $27M Financing Round & Managing the Ever-Changing Priorities as CFO

Dave Pooley, Chief Financial Officer at Axonify

On this episode of The Backbone I chat with Dave Pooley, CFO at Axonify.

Joining me on this episode of the Backbone is Dave Pooley, CFO at Axonify — a provider of an employee knowledge platform intended to help companies shake-up learning and empower people with the knowledge that they need to drive measurable business results.

Dave oversees the Finance & Accounting functions at Axonify. He began his career in public accounting and has since gone on to work at several successful technology and innovation firms. Dave specializes in working with early-stage technology companies and helping them grow effectively and efficiently, driving value to become sustainable long-term successes. His key strengths include a passion for growing an early-stage company in a capital efficient manner while helping to drive and support the sales functions using data-driven insights and legal expertise. Dave obtained his CPA, CA designation while working in public accounting in Banff, Alberta. He also holds a Honors Business Degree from Wilfrid Laurier University.

On this episode of The Backbone, I chat with Dave about:

His journey into technology with stints at Miovision, Fibernetrics and Kitchener-Waterloo based accelerator, Communitech, prior to joining Axonify.
Axonify and what its all about.
Serving the enterprise market and what that means what considerations the finance leader has to make, including the size of investment round and choosing the right investor.
Managing the ever-changing priorities as the CFO, and how priorities change in a smaller organization to a larger one.
The importance of the finance function at a technology company.

We close things off with a quickfire round:

Your go to online resource for all things startup finance related
Your favourite productivity hack
Tech jargon that makes you cringe
The best advise you’ve received
One thing you don’t leave the office before finishing

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Check out previous episodes of The Backbone

Special Feature: Exploring a New & Revolutionary Revenue Model for Education w/ Austen Allred, Co-Founder and CEO of Lambda School

Episode 26: Lessons Learned from Raising $32M Growth Round + the Symbiotic Relationship Between Finance & Operations w/ Samiksha Khanna, VP Finance and Operations at Uberflip

Episode 25: Correlating Non-Financial Metrics into Financial Outcomes + Balancing Ad-load & Revenue Generated Through Sponsored Content w/ Trisha Egberts, Finance Manager at Figure1

Episode 24: Learnings from Starting and Shutting Down a Startup + Balancing Multiple Product Stakeholders w/ Mark Jarvie, VP Finance at Drop

Episode 23: Learnings from Raising/Exiting $700M+ in Deal Value for Software + Hardware and the Importance of a People-First Approach in Finance w/ David Brennan, Chief Financial Officer at Ecobee

Episode 22: Raising $47M from Strategic vs Traditional VC & the Level of Finance Leader to Hire at Each Stage of a Company’s Evolution w/ Danielle Cerisano, VP Finance at League

Episode 21: Using Analytics and Predictive Models to Improve Budgeting + the Role of Attribution in Assessing Digital Marketing ROI w/ Emma Lyndon, CFO at Canopy Labs

Episode 20: Considerations for CAC and Churn in a Self-Serve Pricing Model w/ Matt Dove, VP Finance at Celtx

Episode 19: The Journey of Raising $100M ICO (Initial Coin Offering) as a Venture-Backed Unicorn w/ Brandon Brunet, Controller at Kik

Episode 18: Bootstrapped to $12M Series A & What it Means for the Finance Function w/ Jennifer Pollock, Director of Finance & Operations at RateHub

Episode 17: The Added Complexities of Hardware Tech Companies & How to Price a New Medical Device w/ Travis Phung, Director of Finance & Administration at Exact Imaging

Episode 16: Monetizing a Free Product & Navigating Complexities of the Financial Services Space w/ Brian Wu, Finance Lead at Borrowell

Episode 15: Serving the Restaurant Industry & Breaking Into Tech in a Finance Capacity w/ Rob Curcio, Director of Finance at TouchBistro

Episode 14: Scaling the Finance Function, Fundraising, Making Acquisitions & Operationalizing Metrics w/ Ryan Magee, Chief Financial Officer at Cority

Episode 13: Serving the SMB Market at a Publicly Traded Software Company vs a High-Growth Startup w/ Darren Wood, Director of Finance & Operations at Jobber

Episode 12: Leading Finance at NPOs to High Growth Tech & Bootstrapping vs Raising Venture Capital w/ Anthony Scolaro, VP Finance & Operations at Lucova

Episode 11: Raising $17M Series A Round & What it Means to be ‘Venture-Backed’ w/ Frank Jessop, Director of Finance, Sensibill

Episode 10: Vendor Selection Considerations & Viewing the Finance Function from an Engineering Perspective w/ Gerti Dervishi, VP Finance at Flybits

Episode 9: The Process of Acquiring Companies as a Startup & Best Practices for Investor Relations w/ Ryan Levenberg, VP Finance at Q4 Systems Inc.

Episode 8: Raising VC Funding to Executing an $110M Acquisition + Demystifying the Progressive Roles of the Finance Leader within a Startupw/ Dwayne Walker, CFO at LookbookHQ

Episode 7: Going Through an Acquisition of an eCommerce Company & Keeping Both Sides of a Marketplace Happy w/ Elena Armstrong, Co-Founder & VP Finance at Exact Media

Episode 6: From Finance to Founding an IoT Startup & Bootstrapping vs. Raising Venture Capital w/ Sacha Sawaya, Co-Founder and CFO at Litmus Automation

Episode 5: Difference Between Being an Advisor vs Finance Leader for Tech Startups & When to Raise Capital w/ Eugene Bomba, CFO & VP Operations at ThoughtWire

Episode 4: Transitioning from Professional Services to Finance Leader of Pre-Revenue Tech Startup w/ Chris Parkes, CFO at NuraLogix

Episode 3: Why Finance & Operations go Together & Dealing with the Highly Regulated Financial Services Industry w/ Leen Li, Head of Finance at Wealthsimple

Episode 2: How Finance Scales Growing from 25 to 200+ Employees & Transfer Pricing w/ Les Cullen, Director Finance & Operations at TopHat

Episode 1: Managing Churn & Being Private Equity Backed w/ Daniel Israelsohn, VP Finance & Operations at Firmex

The Backbone is a podcast hosted by Shubham Datta, that explores the journey inside finance at a startup. Each episode features a finance leader (Director/VP, Finance or CFO) that:

shares their story of how they entered the world of startups,
explains what their company does
describes unique challenges he/she faces in their role