Early Growth Financial Services: A Startup Solution

This Post First Appeared Here.

 

WRITTEN BY:Kaleb Stropkovics, Veem

Do you know how exciting it is to get closer to your dreams and goals?

That’s exactly what drives people like Ryan Johnson and Tina Gregory at Early Growth Financial Services (EGFS). By hiring strong, knowledgeable CFOs, Early Growth provides accounting support to early stage, high tech startup companies that otherwise wouldn’t have access to or be able to afford such assistance at this point of their business life cycle.

Startups can’t always afford full-time expertise needed to grow. And if they can, they might not know how to recognize the cash burn occurring right before their eyes. They need organization, structure, and an expert set of eyes.

EGFS recognizes that entrepreneurs are often put in the field to play all positions. But without the know-how, in these new, complicated realms, new professionals might not notice an error, or even just a more suitable program that’s available. This is often their downfall, as accounting and financing knowledge are alien concepts to many people, and can result in poor planning.

This is what brought Early Growth’s CEO David Ehrenberg to build his team of accounting and finance experts and to open an outsourced accounting company.

Some Background

EGFS had to start somewhere. David Ehrenberg, now CEO of EGFS, was working as a financial executive for different companies when he realized that early stage companies could benefit from getting financial assistance without hiring full-time. He decided to start helping small businesses understand their fundraising performance and develop strong financial and accounting infrastructures to contribute to their success.

While David founded the company in 2008, in the midst of the recession, he faced many challenges, including the struggle to find funding. However, the necessity of the business proves true, since over 10 years since conception, the company continues to build its client base. The firm holds its focus on the early stage tech market to help clients grow and be successful.

The development that EGFS helps promote with individual clients extends to promote the development of efficiency throughout the entire industry.

Tina Gregory, CFO at Early Growth, joined the company over 6 years ago.

“Bringing on new clients everyday is energizing. It’s about continuous learning, for myself, but also when teaching others. Our clients are doing awesome things that matter to society. We have non-profit clients enabling people with limitations, some are forwarding education and bringing truly innovative technologies that then spawn additional businesses.”

The development that EGFS helps promote with individual clients extends to promote the development of efficiency throughout the entire industry. While they company helps in this development, they’ve been developing too.

Development

In order to scope out and identify potential clients, EGFS gets really close to the ecosystem. They’re headquartered in the bay area and have stretched across several major markets such as Silicon Valley, NYC, Chicago, Seattle, and Los Angeles, with employees sprinkled throughout the country.

Additionally, EGFS provides relevant content on a monthly basis to get onto consumers’ radars and to prove they are thought leaders in finance and accounting, as well as startup businesses.

Ryan Johnson, COO of EGFS talks about how he’s proud to contribute to the innovation, the focus on technology, and the socioeconomic impact that their clients provide. Ryan came into Early Growth over six years ago. Starting in as a CFO Consultant, he’s climbed his way up to COO, helping the company hire a team of senior accountants and CFOs. In 2017, the company reached over 100 employees and is growing strong.

Johnson claims the company’s aim is to become finance solution, accounting department, and CFO for the clients they support, offering anything a small business would need, but on an hourly basis.

Whether their client needs strategic advice, presentable and transparent analytics, solutions to existing problems, or guidance for appropriate systems and software, they gain “the ability to rev up for the mission they were meant to achieve.”

As they develop in terms of their team and their clients, EGFS maintains the goals and focus that originally sparked the necessity for the company: support and advocacy for startups. They continue this mission, while fluctuating their approaches and solutions for the specific needs of each client.

Early Growth has different goals for each client. Whether their client needs strategic advice, presentable and transparent analytics, solutions to existing problems, or guidance for appropriate systems and software, they gain “the ability to rev up for the mission they were meant to achieve.”

EGFS claims that business owners should surround themselves with people that will better and challenge them. “Frankly, you need that kind of support as an entrepreneur.”

All startups have very unique operating advantages and potential operating challenges. EGFS insists on getting to understand the clients’ profiles and know their clients’ needs and their plans for accomplishing their missions. They hire operating accountants that “understand and support the operations and will give results and analytics that the media and advisory boards are looking for.”

“We’re not just there at the start. We don’t just take the clients in and give them any system. We understand what the client is trying to do and we design systems, procedures, and in fact our whole team to make their existing ideas and operations better and sustainable. We’re proud of that.”

“Our clients will eventually graduate from us and we understand that. Our goal is to make sure our clients have a strong foundation in place, they’re set up for success from day one.”

But there are challenges. Their team is familiar with ages and stages. Development means growing, and sometimes “outgrowing.”

The reality is, when they do a great job helping a client, “providing that transparency into the customer’s growth to help them understand that growth,” they often work themselves out of that job.

“Our clients will eventually graduate from us and we understand that. Our goal is to make sure our clients have a strong foundation in place, they’re set up for success from day one.”

Early Growth’s importance is also ongoing, extending to their business partners and “graduated” clients who continue to develop using EGFS procedures. “Most of those that will eventually graduate from us will still rely on us for consulting. They take the systems, procedures, processes, and policies we’ve written for them and they continue to use them.”

EGFS claims their work is all about continuing to share and learn with emerging and existing technologies. “Continuous learning is the distinguishing feature in this industry.”

Moving Forward

Some of the goals going forward for EGFS are to continue finding more innovative ways to add value to their client relationships and their businesses at the end of the day.

EGFS want startups to know that “the most challenging things will be recurrent. Keep things in perspective, don’t feel overshadowed by challenges, missteps or failures. They happen to everyone. Be mindful of your cash burn and cash runway. Be aware of how much money you have and how you’re spending it so you can continue to grow. Be aware of financial road map.”

The company rides on the importance of support and goal setting. They suggest that business leaders take full advantage of the access to information that are available today. “The ability to learn and adjust is the key to improvement and allows you to maintain freshness, edge, and passion in what you do.”

“We strive to continue to innovate ourselves so we can provide better and more valuable support to the clients that we work with.” And that’s exactly how they came to use Veem.

A Better Way to Pay

EGFS is constantly looking for new ways to make their clients’ lives easier. By providing the CFO position, their clients can spend time becoming better informed about their financial statuses.

Early Growth’s clients use Veem across “every industry and every type of application. Industries stretch from goods and services overseas, paying contractors doing development work, data entry work, creating algorithms.”

EGFS was introduced to Veem on a Quickbooks Connect. “Veem’s been on our radar pretty much from conception. We were able to understand Veem easily, so we introduce it to our clients and say this is what we recommend for you, and this is how we would use it.”

“We pride ourselves on being very thorough early adopters. We’ve been watching Veem for a while as a solution. Our focus is on finding systems that fit a specific need for our clients. But also finding systems that are more than systems, they’re platforms that add efficiencies, have good work flow, and most importantly, have the ability to scale. Veem presents us with all of those capabilities.”

In terms of the industry, EGFS recognizes the importance of finding systems and platforms that not only reflect the convenience and needs of the client, but also the expertise of high tech start up businesses. As they help their clients develop, EGFS needs a platform that can handle that growth.

“Our key focus is on great accounting control, ability to scale, ease in use, stepped approval, all of which Veem has.”

“Veem works seamlessly. They have dedicated and unparalleled customer service that makes Veem look good, and makes us look good by extension. Our customers are on the cutting edge of technology, and so we have to be too. The user experience is very important to us and we always opt for the program that’s going to give us the best capability. That’s how we initially came to Veem.”

“The Veem solution allows us to pay in fiat currency all over the world and it lets us pay our US vendors at no cost at all. Also, very important about the Veem platform is stepped approval, so we have great accounting control.”

“Our key focus is on great accounting control, ability to scale, ease in use, stepped approval, all of which Veem has.”

“We’re very sensitive to our customers’ needs. Sometimes we need solutions that fit unique business needs that somebody else doesn’t service or doesn’t service well. We’re aware that Veem leverages the blockchain space, having some clients in that space. We need to find ways for clients to pay bills that standard existing technologies and institutions won’t service. Veem services very well many clients that have ‘crypto’ in their name, which banks tend to turn away.”

Early Growth Financial Services continues to make life easier for high tech startups. For many clients, they’ve chosen Veem to make transactions more transparent and convenient.

Learn more about Veem here.

Are you ready to start taking advantage of Early Growth Financial Services offerings? Schedule a complimentary consultation with us to grow your business with our financial guidance and strategic relationship building.

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