During a recent Client & Cocktails webinar, Consero’s Director of Private Equity & Venture Capital, Tony Esposito, spoke with serial entrepreneur Eric Broughton about his experiences using the Finance as a Service (FaaS) model at some of the companies he had led over the past decade.
Broughton is currently the CEO of OKCharge, an electric vehicle charging platform for real estate operators and owners. With this platform, vacation and short-term rental owners can allow guests to charge their vehicles at the property instead of having to go to a charging station. The platform can also be used at hotels and resorts, multifamily apartments, single-family rentals, and workplaces.
Going Beyond a Fractional CFO
Broughton first met Consero’s Founder, Scott Tynes, a decade ago and decided to give the FaaS approach a try. “I’d been brought in as CEO to a startup business that was losing considerable money,” he said.
“There was a heavy burn. I wasn’t seeing the trajectory of the business and wasn’t seeing the financials as I expected to see them coming from a large public company.”
Diving deeper, Broughton still couldn’t get the data he needed. After discussing the problem with a board member, he was introduced to Tynes.
“I realized the concept went beyond a fractional CFO,” he said. “There was a technology platform called SIMPL® that brought everything together in one place, with one single point of entry. This made sense to me because I don’t want to be an expert in all these different platforms. I just want it to be done so l can have a Finance & Accounting platform that will scale so I can take care of my clients.”
Esposito pointed out that FaaS helps companies achieve considerable time savings by outsourcing the finance function, which isn’t a core competency. This frees up companies to spend more time focused on the core competencies that grow the business.
“Having greater peace of mind is one of the biggest benefits of the FaaS model,” said Broughton. “My mind isn’t spinning thinking about finance details. I can focus on the goal of achieving a successful exit for the business.”
In using Faas at OKCharge, Broughton said he looks to his outsourced finance team at Consero as a partner even more than before. “I was looking through our financials last night and sent Juan, my Consero VP of Finance, a note asking if we could talk this morning because I had a question about financials. It’s great to be able to just fire off an email to Juan whenever I have a question and have a positive conversation with him when I need to.”
To learn more about Consero and the benefits of using the Finance as a Service model, you can request an introduction here.
