In this episode of FP&A Tomorrow, host Paul Barnhurst, aka "The FP&A Guy," dives into the intricacies of financial planning and analysis (FP&A) with Renato Villanueva, CEO of Parallel, a startup  FP&A tool for early-stage founders. They discuss what makes great FP&A, the journey from risk management to FP&A, and the challenges of scaling a startup while maintaining financial discipline.

Renato Villanueva is an accomplished finance professional and the CEO of Parallel, a company providing innovative financial modeling and forecasting solutions for startups. With a finance degree from Utah Valley University, Renato's experience spans multiple high-profile companies, including Qualtrics, American Express, and Divvy. His deep understanding of FP&A and his entrepreneurial spirit drive the conversation as he shares valuable insights from his career and current ventures.

Expect to Learn:

1. The essential characteristics of effective FP&A and why understanding your company's goals is crucial.

2. How persistence and networking can open doors in your career, as demonstrated by Renato's journey into Divvy.

3. The importance of aligning financial planning with company growth strategies, especially in a startup environment.

4. Key operational metrics to focus on during the early stages of a startup.

5. Strategies for building strong relationships between finance and other business departments to drive success.
   

Quotes:

Here are a few relevant quotes from the episode 

• “Great FP&A is about understanding what the company is trying to accomplish and the role your leader plays in that. It's knowing the North Star metric and ensuring your department has the resources to achieve it." - Renato Villanueva

• "You want to make it as easy as possible for whoever you work with. Sometimes that means meeting people where they’re at rather than forcing them into a new process." - Renato Villanueva

• "The most rewarding part is tackling a really hard problem and empowering founders to make better, bigger bets with confidence." - Renato Villanueva
  

Renato's journey from risk management to becoming the CEO of Parallel offers valuable lessons in persistence, adaptability, and the power of understanding the big picture. Tune in for expert insights as we continue to explore the evolving landscape of FP&A.

Follow Renato:

LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/villanuevar/ 

Follow Paul:

Website - https://www.thefpandaguy.com
LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/thefpandaguy

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Earn Your CPE Credit
For CPE credit please go to earmarkcpe.com, listen to the episode, download the app, and answer a few questions and earn your CPE certification. To earn education credits for FPAC Certificate, take the quiz on earmark and contact Paul Barnhurst for further details.

In Today’s Episode

[01:32] - Introduction to the topic and guest Renato Villanueva
[02:35] - Renato shares his views on what constitutes great FP&A.

[03:29] - Discussion of Renato's career journey

[05:46] - Renato explains how persistence and networking led to his role at Divvy

[14:12] - A look at the key metrics Renato focused on while scaling Divvy

[24:05] - The evolution of the budgeting and forecasting process at Divvy

[26:19] - Tips on how finance professionals can build strong relationships with other departments

[33:10] - Renato shares insights into his current venture, Parallel, and the rewarding experience of building a company from the ground up.

[39:24] - Renato answers quick questions about key FP&A skills

[48:17] - Final thoughts and how to connect with Renato

Full Show Transcript

[00:00:00] Host: Paul Barnhurst: What does great FP&A look like in your mind? What is great FP&A?

[00:00:03] Guest: Renato Villanueva: Great FP&A is like a great understanding of what the company is trying to accomplish, and the leader that you report to like what their role is in that. But it's one of those things that like things are like so busy that like, we know we need help and sometimes it's hard to like, pause and like get the help. You know, when I talk to someone, maybe on the first attempt it didn't matter. They're in the middle of fundraising. That's all they were thinking about.

[00:00:23] Host: Paul Barnhurst: And you wanted to be an FP&A or how did that transition come about?

[00:00:27] Guest: Renato Villanueva: I just knew that I didn't want to be in risk forever. And so I just like I always view just generally life as like what's going to keep the most doors open for me. One of the questions I would tell everyone to think about is like, what is the efficiency tied to what you're asking for? Our burn almost never changed in the sense of like we were never just incrementally adding burn.

[00:00:50] Host: Paul Barnhurst: That's not necessarily going to win friends, right? It's not necessarily the right approach. There's times when you may have to do something like that, but you need to focus on making their life easier. For a guy. Here. Have you ever wanted to level up your FP&A skills? Then check out the FP&A Guys Ultimate Course bundle at thefpandaguy.com. That's the fp and a guy.com and use code podcast to save 25%. Get started learning today. Hello everyone! Welcome to FP&A tomorrow, where we delve into the world of financial planning and analysis, examining its current state and future prospects. I'm your host, Paul Barnhurst, aka the FP&A guy, and I will be guiding you through the evolving landscape of FP&A. Each week we're joined by thought leaders, industry experts, and practitioners who share their insights and An experiences helping us navigate today's complexities and tomorrow's uncertainties. This week we're thrilled to be joined by Renato Villanueva. Renato, thanks for joining us.

[00:02:10] Guest: Renato Villanueva: Yeah. Happy to be here.

[00:02:11] Host: Paul Barnhurst: Yeah, really happy to have you. So, a little bit about Renato. We'll give him an opportunity to share more about himself. He comes to us from the heart of Silicon Slopes. Lehi, Utah. He is the CEO of parallel, a startup tool in the FP&A space. He has his finance degree from Utah Valley University, and he's worked for several companies, including Qualtrics, American Express, and Divi. So the first question we like to ask all our guests on this show is, what does great FP&A look like in your mind? What is great FP&A?

[00:02:45] Guest: Renato Villanueva: Yeah, I think great FP&A is like a great understanding of what the company is trying to accomplish, and the leader that you report to like what their role is in that. Right. So like you might have the North Star metric of we want to ship an awesome product that our customers love, and we get to $50 million in RR by the end of the year. And, , good FP&A is knowing what your department leader's role is in that and making sure that they have the resources to get after it.

[00:03:11] Host: Paul Barnhurst: So I really like that understanding that North Star metric or what the business is trying to accomplish, what role your leader, your department plays in that, and then making sure it happens.

[00:03:24] Guest: Renato Villanueva: Yeah, exactly. Like figuring out the way to get the money to make it happen.

[00:03:28] Host: Paul Barnhurst: Got it I like that. So why don't you tell us a little bit about yourself, your background, what you're doing today.

[00:03:35] Guest: Renato Villanueva: Yeah. So background's in finance, right? Like, the biggest stint that I spent in finance was at Divi on a personal level. Level, right. Like three kids married. , that's keeping us super busy. And then what I'm doing today is we're building a platform that makes, , financial modeling and and forecasting a breeze for early stage founders. And when we say early stage, it's like really that that point where a company enough is going right that they need, they're going to start making bigger bets, right. So like the initial bet you might be making when you're like a solo founder is probably spending for a LinkedIn premium subscription. But like once you start getting to 20, 30, 40, 50 customers, you're going to start thinking about hiring an SDR, thinking about hiring an SEO and all these sort of having material impact to how much runway you have. And we want to make it easy for founders to know what levers they can pull on, what bets they're making, and just very easily let them see different outcomes.

[00:04:30] Host: Paul Barnhurst: You know, as you say, that, I mean, I think of just my business how small it is, business to one. And I've made a bunch of changes that are big bets. And they look at that, it's like, all right, here's my runway with this. If it's this and starting, you know, just run all those different scenarios. You get more of an appreciation when you're running your own company. And even when you run finance at a, at another company. So it's been really interesting to start relating all those little things that I have to deal with on a daily basis to the broader finance community.

[00:04:58] Guest: Renato Villanueva: And that's kind of one of the things we're trying to fix in general is just that, like it kind of seems like there's always been this, like the founder and the executive team will meet with the finance team and they'll make a plan and then finance will go somewhere else and plan it. But we actually want, like the founder, to feel very comfortable in what the forecast looks like and essentially have an experience where he can actually ask and interact with the model himself. And that's not actually clicking into a cell, but interacting in it with interacting with our product the way you and I would be interacting with each other.

[00:05:30] Host: Paul Barnhurst: Making it much easier. We can ask questions, you can interact it all through a web browser, and not have to get into all the details to get answers to questions. Yep, yep. All right. So before we'll talk a little bit more about your your tool here I'm sure as we go through all this. But I want to start with kind of the early days you started, you ended up at Divi pretty early in your career. And during the early days of the company. So how did you end up at divvy? How did that come about?

[00:05:59] Guest: Renato Villanueva: Gosh, man, just like sheer luck. So. , no. So when I, when I graduated, when I graduated from UVU, I had also taken like level one of the CFA, like Chartered Financial analyst program, and I was just connecting with alumni that, like, were charter holders and kind of reaching out to people that were in a space that I was interested in. And, one of them was actually McKay Dunn, who at the time was at Signal Peak and is now at Tandem Ventures. But he was working on on doing diligence on divvy at the time. I think they were raising and , and he, he like involved me in the project and I thought it was awesome and got connected to Alex and Blake. And I thought the concept was so cool that I was just like, hey, Blake and Alex, like, can I get a job? And, you know, they were so early. The last person they're thinking to hire someone, someone in finance. , but I ended up doing an underwriting at American Express, and I was there for a year. And I think, like, every month during that year, I was kind of harassing Blake and asking him, can I come work here? And, , and things just kind of lined up. Where did he got to a point where they needed to bring underwriting in-house, and I'm sure that Blake probably just looked underwriting. And he came. I came up and he saw that I'd been bugging the hell out of him, and he reached out. And so that was kind of like my way into DV was having that connection from Mackay in the past, and then also leveraging my experience in underwriting to fill a need that was, , where there was a gap at the time.

[00:07:23] Host: Paul Barnhurst: Love it. Great. Great story. And it shows the importance of networking, persistence, and also sometimes there's just a little bit of luck involved.

[00:07:33] Guest: Renato Villanueva: Oh yeah. Gosh, man, I, I always tell people like, there's so much power in just bugging the hell out of someone. Like, we just we just hired an intern and his name is Parker. Super sharp kid. Like, one of the one of the exercises we get, we gave him. He just, like, killed it, you know, knocked it out of the park. , but it's one of those things that like, things are like so busy that like, we know we need help. And sometimes it's hard to like, pause and like get the help. And so, like we had interviewed him, we'd interviewed a few candidates, but things were getting busy enough that like, we just kind of put a pause on it. And he just he just kept texting me and he kept like emailing me and being like, hey, like, what's the next step? What can I do? And it's one of those things that it's like, okay, like he nailed the exercise and he's just like, he just like, won't stop. I'm like, I'm willing to take a bet on someone that won't stop. And so I always tell people, I'm like, , after you interview. And you know, what's funny is actually one of my first jobs was I was a teller at Wells Fargo. And when I actually applied, one of my buddies at the time gave me an idea. He was like, hey, you should, like, write a thank you note and like, go leave it on the manager's desk when he's at lunch or something. , so after my interview, I went, sure enough, I went and got the letter and put it on his desk. And like an hour later, he calls and he's like, hey, we want to give you the job, right? And later I learned that there was someone that was like, you know, a little bit more experience. I don't know how much experience you need to be a teller, but some of that is a little bit more qualified than me. And he was like, yeah, it's like, but.

[00:08:52] Host: Paul Barnhurst: Sure, maybe done it before or whatever. Yeah. But he was.

[00:08:56] Guest: Renato Villanueva: Just like, we were stoked that you just like, took the time to go get a note and like follow up with us, you know? And so, , big fan of just harassing people until they give you a way in.

[00:09:05] Host: Paul Barnhurst: No, I've learned a lot of that as, , doing sales in my business and training, I'm constantly every, you know, every couple months, every few weeks, whatever it may be, following up with people that expressed interest until they tell me to go away, I'm going to keep asking them, because you never know when they're going to say yes. I mean, obviously you want to be professional and you want to make sure you do it in a way that you're being positive and friendly. But there's nothing wrong with just being persistent. People will tell you if you if you're bothering them. If not, keep trying.

[00:09:37] Guest: Renato Villanueva: Yeah, I mean, I'm even amazed when it comes on sales. Like I'm surprised how often on like the eighth or ninth message, someone will respond and be like, dude, you know what? Thanks for like, not stopping It's been super, you know, it's been super busy. I'd love to chat, you know, and I think, , and, like, things don't matter until they matter. And so, like, you know, when I talk to someone, maybe on the first attempt, it didn't matter. They're in the middle of a fundraising. That's all they were thinking about. And then the second, you know, so it's just, I don't know, I'm a big fan of just not stopping. And then there's there's a limit to that. Right? You have to be polite. You have to be, you know, there's there's like there is too much. But generally speaking I don't know how much is too much.

[00:10:14] Host: Paul Barnhurst: Yeah. I'm generally the philosophy of keep following up as long as you're not like flooding their inbox or being overly aggressive, keep following. They'll tell you when too much is, when it's too much. And I think until they've done that, as long as you're polite, there's nothing wrong with continuing to follow up and you're being respectful, like you're not following up every five hours or every day. Maybe it's once a week or every other week or whatever a reasonable time frame is for what it is, and that's going to vary depending on the thing. At least that's that's kind of my take. That's what I've come to learn. So I'm with you. So there's our selves Lesson for the day keep, keep following up. Don't, .

[00:10:51] Guest: Renato Villanueva: Just bug the hell out.

[00:10:52] Host: Paul Barnhurst: After one try. Or as Renato says, just bug the hell out of everybody. That could be a tagline. I might put that in in one of our snippets that we do.

[00:11:00] Guest: Renato Villanueva: Tag me. Yeah. Do it.

[00:11:02] Host: Paul Barnhurst: Alrighty. So I want to ask you what made you make the switch from underwriting and risk to FP&A? Were you enjoying risk? Was it you wanted to be an FP&A or how did that transition come about?

[00:11:16] Guest: Renato Villanueva: , I think that I just knew that I didn't want to be in risk forever. And so I just like I always view just generally life as like what's going to keep the most doors open for me. And I knew that the longer I stayed in risk, the more I was like committing my life to risk. Right? And so like when you see and there's nothing wrong about that, like if you love risk, you should you should do that. I just knew that I wasn't sure that I wanted to be in risk forever. And so for that reason I was like, okay, like and then also too, it just seemed like so much fun. The stuff that they were working on, like growth and the marketing funnel and cool projects and, and, you know, over here, it was a vital part of the business of managing our loss rates at a, at a, at a, at a reasonable level. But it was just like one piece of, like the 50 piece puzzle. And I saw these guys that were owning 49 one day. They're working in marketing, one day they're working, one day they are working with us on the risk side one day. And so it was just like, it just seemed like there was way more doors open if I went that route.

[00:12:19] Host: Paul Barnhurst: Makes a lot of sense. And I would agree because of the fact you see so much more of the business. In fact, it's going to open up doors whether you want to go into operations or other places, especially in a startup, because my view, and I would love to get your thoughts on this. As we're talking, I think at startups, you know what you want. Like that first finance or the first few finance hires, you're looking for an athlete versus someone who's a specialist. You could throw them at rev ops if you need to. You can go have them help over here because often the roles aren't near as defined as with a big company. What would you say to that? What's your thoughts on that idea?

[00:12:53] Guest: Renato Villanueva: Yeah, I mean, I think generally it's true. I think like someone that's in finance can do like a they'll do a, they'll do a shitty job at rev ops, but they'll like, do they directionally know what metrics matter. They'll know that like oh hey. Like we should think about the close rate, the demo held rate, the lead to demo conversion rate. Like directionally I know the output of rev ops. So I think if anything, sometimes like hiring a finance operator early might help you better architect the roles that you need and why. Because it's just like, hey, we got we got as far as we could with Renato being the one telling, like giving us input on like the rev ops side. And, and that's where like a good finance operator will know when like their expertise is no longer there and they need someone to offer help.

[00:13:35] Speaker3: Yeah.

[00:13:36] Host: Paul Barnhurst: Totally get that. Like I remember I was in a role and unfortunately I wasn't able to convince them. But I kept saying, look, we're at the point I don't have the skill. We don't have anyone in this function that really has the data science skill. We're a big enough company. We need someone with some of that to get insights and to really run some algorithms and do some things within finance. And it was me recognizing, look, I can do certain things, but some of the stuff that we need to analyze is beyond the level of any, any skill we have. But I'm with you on that. The big part of that is knowing when you need to hire. Yes, you can help initially. You can do some of those things, but there's a point when you need that specialist. So I'm curious, what were the key, , operational metrics you looked at, especially in those early days? What were the things you were really paying close attention to other than obviously cash? Every startup is watching that closely.

[00:14:24] Guest: Renato Villanueva: Yeah. I mean, I think what mattered most was just growth, right? And there's kind of like two levers to that, which is how many customers are we adding? The second metric was how many of those customers are spending. And then another metric that we were really interested in was like, when someone comes in and they ask for 100 K credit line or 50 K credit line, whatever it is, how often are they like? How much of that are they actually spending? And so that was like a very important one. It's kind of like looking at, okay, why are people asking for way more than they're spending? Because like initially and again this goes back to it's like you make an assumption right. So like initially we were just like, oh, if someone's asking for ten K that's because they're going to spend ten K. So like that was the going assumption. And so then we like learned that that was wrong. And so then it was like okay. Like then we'll put an assumption that maybe they only spend 50%. And then over time we learned, okay, it's almost like this six month period that it takes them to get to that point. And so I would say like credit utilization was like a big one for us. And then kind of other contribution margin things that were like in our control, like how many, how much rewards are we offering? How many losses are we taking? Because all of those just played a role on how much of like our interchange that we were collecting, that we were actually the money we were making on the interchange?

[00:15:37] Host: Paul Barnhurst: Yeah. And so talk a little bit about what divvy did and kind of how that that model worked a little bit for anyone who may not understand.

[00:15:45] Guest: Renato Villanueva: Yeah. So DV was an expense management platform, the main product of which was a corporate, a corporate credit card, a corporate charge card. And so like, someone would come because they wanted to be able to streamline all like the receipts and the expense reports and being able to, like, give department leaders money and be able to set budgets around that. , but the driver was like a credit card, right? Like if someone came in because they wanted to put all their marketing spend and kind of control it on one budget, they could do that with DV. And so when someone would swipe, we would get a portion of the interchange. And so it was a product that was free, which made it awesome because it made sales a very easy or an easy conversation when we'd call controllers and we'd say, hey, you're spending, you know, 40 hours a month just collecting receipts and collecting memos and getting all this data around your expenses. Why don't you come here and we'll, like, automate all of it for you. And it's free because we are making money on the interchange. , but because of the nature of, like, making money on the interchange. We had to be really efficient on what costs were also related. Meaning if we were extending that money, that means we were borrowing that money from someone to lend to them. So there's like an interest component of that that we had to manage and we were lending them money and maybe they don't pay us back. And so we had to kind of manage our loss rates and different like components of it. But yeah, that's like corporate card as an expense management platform.

[00:17:02] Host: Paul Barnhurst: Expense management, your revenue is coming off that interchange fee every time they swipe the card to pay for something, there is a percentage you are getting. Yep. Totally understand that. I worked at American Express and you know, that card industry and that whole model, that interchange rate is huge. So I'm curious, how did you guys manage and forecast cash runway as you were scaling that business? Because I know there's obviously some high cash needs with expense management.

[00:17:31] Guest: Renato Villanueva: You know, I think I think one of the things that helped us was just being very disciplined about what money we approved and didn't approve. And so I think that there can always be kind of this like finance loves trends and averages and benchmarks. And so a lot of times, like someone in finance will join a company and they'll say, hey, like we need to hit this, this margin percentage or whatever. And so it's harder to like manage cash when you're managing to a margin, because when you hit, that is going to be, you know, it could be all over the place. , instead what what we did is we just, like, had a very good perspective on, like, we would not approve any expense without trying to offset it in some sort of efficiency. Right. And I think that like one of the questions I would tell everyone to think about is like, what is the efficiency tied to what you're asking for? So like kind of like our burn almost never changed in the sense of like we were never just incrementally adding burn. So it made adding burn easy, like managing burn Easy was, well, it's like, hey, you're going to ask for 50 K software expense. What efficiency does that mean to your team? How many heads in the future does that mean we don't have to hire. So like it's this way easier game to manage burn when any addition to burn is actually offsetting itself, or making a better improvement to what you're burning on a monthly basis.

[00:18:54] Host: Paul Barnhurst: For a guy here today, I want to talk about the FP&A Guys Ultimate FP&A course bundle. This bundle includes over ten hours of content recorded by Ron Monteiro and myself. Many templates and great lessons to make you a better FP&A professional. The content includes FP&A business partnering, how to manage tough conversations, build world class relationships, and hold the business accountable. Includes modern Excel, which is a real game changer for the way you'll work in Excel. Excel tables the gateway to modern Excel. Power Query a game changer for transforming your manual processes and loading data, and then dynamic arrays. Next we cover modeling design principles. In this course, we talk about the importance of designing models in a certain way and how important it is that you think about design. And last but not least, driving value through smart analysis how you can conduct data analysis to be a better FP&A professional. Go ahead and sign up for this bundle at thefpandaguy.com. That's the fp and a guy.com. Use the code podcast to save 25%. Get started learning today. And so it sounds like that goal was, hey, anytime we're adding anything, how are we offsetting it? How are we making sure that it's either a positive impact overall or at least a net zero?

[00:20:24] Guest: Renato Villanueva: Yeah, I mean always like I gosh man, the times that we approve something without one of those tied. I mean, even if it was like loosely defined, like let's say someone needed an EA we would try to think of some sort of like efficiency. We'd be like, okay, so 20% of your time can now be spent back to coaching your leaders, which means we don't need to hire a sales enablement person for six months, and that person's salary is going to be 150 K. And with burden and everything where okay, well, we're delaying that for six months. That money will offset the E expense. So it's like even in something like that. And like again, it's not an exact science, but it's like worth going through the exercise of being like call the shot. Like, why are we doing this?

[00:21:07] Host: Paul Barnhurst: And how has that experience at divvy in that way of managing cash helped you out parallel as you're managing your runway?

[00:21:15] Guest: Renato Villanueva: Well, I think that's the entire concept of what we're trying to build, which is like we want founders as they're thinking about the future, that they're placing a bet with an outcome in mind. , so there's an aspect of the product. Now as far as, like us as a company, it's the exact same perspective where it's like we're not we're not going to hire someone or we're not going to add an expense unless we feel pretty confident about what the outcome can be. And so it's like there might be this desire to hire someone in CS and it's like, okay, well, like, let's think about it. So if Renato is, you know, 50% of my time is freed up to go back to sales. Does that mean so, like, let's increase my quota for the next year. And if we increase revenue by that amount, does that cover the CS rep that we'd be hiring? So it's like it's the same approach, which is if you're placing a bet, what do you want the outcome to be? And it's very much how we think about everything on a day to day basis.

[00:22:09] Host: Paul Barnhurst: And I'm curious beyond obviously the cash runway, but how do you think about bets? Are you someone that likes to place a lot of small bets, make a big bet, or how do you think about that? You know, ignoring runway for a moment. But I just love your thoughts in general of how you think about placing bets. As you know, startup founder.

[00:22:27] Guest: Renato Villanueva: I think you always want to place really massive bets, but I think that you can't place too many of them at once. So it's like, let's say I want to place a bet like we're at the revenue level where we think, hiring an SDR to bring more top of funnel demos might be valuable, like that's going to be a 75 K expense. That is material. I mean, if I have $1 million in the bank, that is almost a month of runway that I'm giving up for this person, right? , the issue, I think, is people like, that's a big that's, you know, to some extent it's a big bet. But imagine if I was making a bet on we're hiring an SDR and we're going to dump 15 K a month in marketing, and we're going to hire an AE and we're going to hire a C. It's just like the bets compound. And it's like what could could have extended runway because they all hit their metrics and they all hit their metrics or like knocked it out of the park. Maybe that would have extended runway eight months. But it's like I think when you're placing too many at once, I think that's the issue. But like everything, I mean, the nature of being a venture backed startup is you're like place, you're only placing big bets. I mean, I view You all our expenses or all the bets that we're making? The same way a VC is looking at it, which is, hey, is this going to be the company that, you know, more than returns the entire fund? And so that's kind of the same way I view my expenses where it's like, okay, is this like, is this just such a no brainer? But a lot of times the no brainers have a like a probability of working out. And so it's like you have to just balance how confident you are in each bet. And that kind of drives how many bets you can have out at once.

[00:23:58] Host: Paul Barnhurst: Makes a lot of sense. I think there's definitely something to be said for that, especially like how you bring in the VC tied to that, of how you think about that. So I want to go back to DV and ask another question. You were there for several years. Obviously, the company grew substantially, went through a number of funding rounds and an exit. Well, how did that budgeting process forecast change over time as you were scaling the company? I imagine the first day you went in there, that first budget and the last one was quite different in process and what all was involved. So maybe just talk a little bit about that kind of scaling and how that process changed over time.

[00:24:33] Guest: Renato Villanueva: Yeah, I mean, it really didn't change at all. And I think part of that was because the CFO, Blakely, he had such a strong like background and experience scaling companies that you like. You never want to slow down a startup, but I think you had a really good perspective, which was like this idea of every expense should be offset. That was just the approach forever. Like it never changed. And there was an element of like even in the early days, we'd kind of lock in annual budget after a quarter ended. We'd do like the three plus nine where we'd kind of like reassess what the rest of the year. Then we'd do the six plus six, and we'd do the nine plus three like we did that the first month we were there, and we did that up until when I left. So like so nothing really changed. I mean, if anything, it maybe took a little bit longer just because marketing went from being a one person org to being a five person org but the approach and the perspective never changed. It was it was always the same, like there was never a point where we would manage to like a specific margin amount. There was never a time where we were doing like top down budgeting. The perspective on like we do, bets placed, budgeting, whatever you want to call it. Like that was just how we did it, and that just never changed.

[00:25:52] Host: Paul Barnhurst: So it sounds like the only thing that really changed is maybe complexity in the sense of now we got to forecast more departments, more people, more money. But the core process and the way you ran it never really changed 100%.

[00:26:05] Guest: Renato Villanueva: Yeah. Nothing ever changed to the time we were there.

[00:26:08] Host: Paul Barnhurst: Got it. Makes sense I like that. I think there's something to be said for that. If you have a process that works and allows scaling is stick with that. There's no need, no need to change it if it's working for you. So the next thing I'd like to ask you about is how do you how did you go about building relationships with the business so that you could help guide the business while you were at DV. I mean, how do you think about that? Because obviously so important that finance is there to help guide, I think, especially during hypergrowth, so that you don't get in that grow at any cost and expense just spirals out of control. How did you help, you know, build strong relationships so you could guide the business?

[00:26:46] Guest: Renato Villanueva: I think it's like you just have to be, willing to do whatever it takes to make that business leader's life easier. And, like, I think sometimes we come in with finance will come in and they'll be like, okay, this is the new process. And they feel like they should tell that marketing leader how how the show is going to be run from now on. And I think that like, I don't know, like I would say find that thing and that leader's process that's broken or that's frustrating or that's taking them time. And, and I think that like until that leader feels like you, you are there to make them win. They're never going to want to spend time with you. They're not going to like, really involve you in, like, their inner circle, whatever it might be. And I think a lot of times that can be frustrating to finance people because they think that maybe like, they'll think that's not my job, but it's like your job is to have that leader like and trust you like that business leader. Leader needs to like you. That's just what that's just the reality.

[00:27:45] Guest: Renato Villanueva: And if they don't, then you need you need to ask to switch. And so it can be as easy as being like, hey, like what's a report that you, spend time every month getting together that like, I could, I could fix and like, make it easier or like, you know, find a way to just make that person's life easier, give them a small win because it's like, until they, like trust. If they can't trust you with, like, a simple report, are they going to trust you when you're giving them inputs or insights around their hiring plan, or like key metrics that they're targeting or that they're, you know, aiming towards? So it's like for me, it's to get that it's like you have to have a leader to like, you find that thing that you guys can talk about, find that thing you guys have in common. Find that thing that they are just getting annoyed with, that you could make easier for them and just give them, or give them a way to give them a reason to like you.

[00:28:34] Host: Paul Barnhurst: Can you share an example where you did that?

[00:28:37] Guest: Renato Villanueva: Oh man. , I think like early on, our, our head of sales was like building comp plans and it was just kind of like, you know, I think we were all like, you know, you don't know what a comp plan should be. And yeah, we just, you know, we came in and we just made the model a little bit more dynamic, like there's maybe eight places he was having to make changes and we're like, hey, we made it just a little bit easier because we like locked this cell and locked this cell. And we like, you know, we adjusted the formatting of the sheet. So a formula is in black and values are in blue. Like here you go. It's easier. Like we didn't touch anything. We just like made it a little bit easier. And then all sudden he's like okay well like we're not understands what I'm trying to get out of this model. He made it a little bit easier. Like, what other thoughts do you have? What else could we do to make it better? Right. Because now it's like I took what he had. I didn't change it. I didn't make it resemble something he didn't trust. To where? It's just like. No. Like, it's almost like I want to keep something in their format as long as possible. But that's like an example, like they were developing a comp plan. We went in, made it just a little more digestible, and they were happy about it. And so then naturally they're just like, well, shoot, if like Renata did that in a week, what if he owned it? Like, what if what if he likes what was what if this was his full time job?

[00:29:47] Host: Paul Barnhurst: I love how you mentioned that you didn't, like, change the whole process, make it your own. You just made some enhancements that made their life easier. And there's a lot to be said for that. I think sometimes you come in and, oh, we need to rebuild this whole thing. And it's like, that's not necessarily going to win friends, right? It's not necessarily the right approach. There's times when you may have to do something like that, but you need to focus on making their life easier, not building the process the way you think it should be. I think there's a fine line there.

[00:30:15] Guest: Renato Villanueva: Yeah, I mean, I think like there's software and there's all these cool products that make life easier but it's like sometimes that's not what people want. And so like a good example would be Blake like today you have Figma slides and Google Slides. And you know it's so easy to leave comments and it's like it's so easy to collaborate. , but Blakely just loved when we would print off the slides, hand it to him, he'd have a marker or a pen and he would just like, okay, change this slide. I want it to look like this. And he just hand it back. Now, is it like, could it have been a little bit more efficient if we had done it in a Google Slides or Figma slides? It's like maybe. But that's how Blakely's mind operated and worked and like what he felt comfortable with. And so it's like I could have tried to force him down this path of like, no, like, let's do an figma slides. Look, you can like click a component, you can make a comment or it's like I can meet him where he's at. And so I think like again, it's such a you want to just like make it as easy as possible for whoever you work with. And I think sometimes finance will try to like build a model or try to do something and it's like it's just unrecognizable. So I'm always asking them like, hey, we're I know that you're thinking about this, like, show me the sheet where you're working out of and and gosh, man, it's like the smallest things. Remove the gridlines, you know, freeze, freeze some panes. Like you'd be surprised how much easier you can make something for a leader. And all of a sudden they're just like, wow, Renato is a wizard. And I'm like, dude, all I did was freeze some paint so that when you scroll down, the date follows like, it's not rocket science. But now this person likes me and he trusts me.

[00:31:49] Host: Paul Barnhurst: Looking to level up your career and build skills that make you stand out to for hiring managers. How about earning a certificate from a world renowned business school? Wharton Online and Wall Street Prep have partnered to create an eight week online financial planning and analysis certificate program. You'll learn the art of forecasting, analysis, business partnering, and financial storytelling from Wharton Online's world class faculty, coupled with firsthand exposure to technical and Excellent interpersonal skills with real world applications as practiced in top corporations. Space is limited, so level up your career today and use the discount code, the FPA guy 300 to receive $300 off tuition. That is the FPA guy 300 to receive $300 off tuition. Learn more by going to wallstreetprep.wharton.upenn.edu/. I can relate to that one. It's funny sometimes how some something so simple can mean so much, but I love if I was going to take one thing away from what you said there. I love how you said meet people where they are. I think that's one of the first. Meet them there, make their life a little easier wherever they're at, and they'll start trusting you and you build from there. And so I really like that. I want to move on to a little bit of what you're doing today. So first, you know, recently I think was this last summer, if I remember right, or earlier this year, you were included in the top 100 founders, , driving innovation and growth in Utah, a list that came out. What was that experience like?

[00:33:27] Guest: Renato Villanueva: Like being included in the list? Yeah.

[00:33:29] Host: Paul Barnhurst: Being included. Knowing your name, was there just kind of talk, maybe just a little bit about that?

[00:33:35] Guest: Renato Villanueva: I think that I don't feel like I've done anything to be included on any list. So that's how I, how I feel about it.

[00:33:46] Host: Paul Barnhurst: So is it was it quite a surprise for you when you found out about it then?

[00:33:51] Guest: Renato Villanueva: Sure. Like I knew I had been nominated. But my general response to the people that organized it was just I have done nothing to merit being on any list, right? Because I think like it was, you know, we we've made like a lot of progress on what we've built. We've managed to fundraise a little, but that's like celebrating buying the wood. When you're building a house, it's like okay, we have the materials. It's like, we're not going to take a break now. And so being a part of the list, like, sure, it's cool. Maybe most people never get to the part where they buy the wood and they're getting ready to start building. But I'm like, I don't know if it's still worth celebrating yet. Like, let's get going. And so it was like, I mean, yes, it's cool to be on the list. My thoughts are I don't I don't think I should be on any list.

[00:34:39] Host: Paul Barnhurst: Makes a lot of sense. I get what you're saying. You're like, all right, thanks for recognizing for starting a process, but I really haven't done anything yet. Talk to me in five years and see where the company is at, or in two years, or whatever the time frame is, right? You have a goal where you want to get, and you're at the beginning of that journey.

[00:34:54] Guest: Renato Villanueva: Yeah, yeah, 100%. It's almost like it's not. It's not that some things aren't worth celebrating. Like, let's say my son got into Harvard. My son or daughter got into Harvard. Like, for sure we would celebrate, but not nearly at the scale after they graduate. Right. Sure. And so that's.

[00:35:12] Host: Paul Barnhurst: It's cool that they got in, but it's, it's a much bigger when they actually finish that task?

[00:35:17] Guest: Renato Villanueva: Yes.

[00:35:19] Host: Paul Barnhurst: Makes makes a lot of sense. What has been the most rewarding part so far of building your own company?

[00:35:24] Guest: Renato Villanueva: I think just that, like, I think getting an opportunity to tackle a really hard problem. And, you know, it's funny, like when I got Covid three years ago, it was a really weird experience, like, and I was one of the people that got it really bad, like, oxygen at like 80 and below. , I, , you know, it's funny, when our, when our son was born, I, like, was at the hospital and like, as soon as the baby came out, I was like, congrats, babe. I'm going to go back and lay down. , and, it was a weird experience at some point to, like, hit this. I'm like, wow. I'm like, have a, I have something that's killed a lot of people. And that's it was a weird thought to be like, not like, I don't want to be dramatic and say, like, I could have been one of those people. But it was like, you know, it's really bad. You know, I had asthma growing up, and so I didn't know it was going to be affected. And so it's a weird thing to be, to have had that disease and been like, could I be one of the ones that. And that did. And so I think similarly, being a founder, it's like weird to have the same starting point as like a lot of successful founders and be like, can I be the one that figures it out too, right? Because it's funny, like I've told this, like I think Mark Zuckerberg, they're like first angel investor or their first investment was like 500 or 800 K, and this probably isn't the exact right way to think about it.

[00:36:39] Guest: Renato Villanueva: But like, you know, we raised 2 million. And so I was like, you know, I'll talk to Tyler and I'll be like, Tyler is is our idea two plus X better than Facebook, right? Because like and again that's not like an exact science. It's not exactly how it works. But but there is an element of like someone was only willing to give mark at like 400,000 users this much money and people were willing to give us this much money. So I think, like, it's really rewarding to, like, have stepped into an opportunity to like, figure it out. So the most rewarding piece is like learning along the way.  I think it's rewarding to see customers use the product. I think it's rewarding to see customers like the mission of what we're trying to build is empowering founders to make better bets and bigger bets. And so it's like, so awesome to see that founder feel confident to go make a bigger bet because he has the financial insight to say, yes, this makes sense. , so like all of that, like who I'm getting to become, seeing our customers use the product, seeing the product evolve, seeing the relationship that Tyler and Clint and I have, like, all of that's just so rewarding.

[00:37:52] Host: Paul Barnhurst: Love it and I love all that you said there. And it sounds like you have a really good perspective on this and you're enjoying the journey. And even though I'm sure it's really hard and at times it can be tiring, but you've got a challenging problem you're trying to solve. I like how you summed that, empowering the owners with the data they need the financial data to make bigger and better bets to move their business forward.

[00:38:16] Guest: Renato Villanueva: Yeah.

[00:38:16] Guest: Renato Villanueva: It's just yeah, it's just awesome. And then now it's also rewarding when I see other people do it. So like one of the sales guys at DV, his name is Ryan Savage. He just launched a hat brand called Hive and Pines and, like, I know what it like. And again, I won't say I know I'm experiencing what it what it is to go from like, an idea to being like, I'm going to do this. And it's like, cool to see, like now it's like one of those things that like, you know, I see him and I admire him. I'm like, man, that is so awesome that you're willing to do that. Like, you had an idea and you actually, like, started doing something. And so, like, I think it's rewarding also that it's almost like this, , this experience that gets that has allowed me to connect to people in a way that I've never been able to 100% agree.

[00:38:59] Host: Paul Barnhurst: I have a totally different appreciation now, having ran my own business for two years. Yes. I'm not building a big company and hiring a bunch of people, but I'm building something and I have that appreciation of starting it and figuring it out. And the growth. And it gives you a different perspective, and you feel like you're kind of part of a different group in a way, because you all can relate at some level to the that whole experience of starting something.

[00:39:22] Guest: Renato Villanueva: Exactly.

[00:39:24] Host: Paul Barnhurst: Alrighty. So this next section I like to call this kind of a our rapid fire, in that we're looking for short, quick answers here. And we have five questions we're going to ask you. These are ones pretty much we ask everybody similar questions to this. So the first one is what is the number one technical skill that FP&A professionals should master.

[00:39:44] Guest: Renato Villanueva: Gosh man. I don't think there is any, to be honest. I,  I'm actually think that there's like this huge transition that needs to happen from thinking that FP&A needs to be super technical. I think it's just can they solve can they think through a problem and understand? So it's like the technical skill that they need is the ability to learn about a concept really fast. So like if they're meeting with their marketing leader to learn that really quickly.

[00:40:11] Host: Paul Barnhurst: I like it, so being able to rapidly learn, having that curiosity and being able to scale quickly. What's the number one soft or human skill we need?

[00:40:20] Guest: Renato Villanueva: You have to learn how to sell shitty news as good news. Like, I don't know, like, I think it's just like, learning how to disguise a no as a yes, because sometimes it's like the default sometimes can be. No. But I think the number one thing you can master is learning how to turn it into a learning how to share a no as a yes, like, no, we can't give you, you know, 800 K to launch on this like random marketing campaign. But we would be able to if like x, Y or Z is true. And so like I think mastering that of just like don't ever tell someone no. Tell them yes if.

[00:40:58] Host: Paul Barnhurst: Yeah it's no end or yes if as you said, I totally get that. I really like that. I think that's a great skill for, for professionals to have. And first time we've had it put that way. If you could wave a magic wand and change one thing about FP&A today, what would you change?

[00:41:16] Guest: Renato Villanueva: I think under like understanding the mantle of responsibility that they hold. I think that it's so easy for FP&A to think that its reports and budgets and whether you're over or under and excel. So I think if I could wave a magic wand, I would get rid of any content that references Excel shortcuts and just delete all the content around stuff like that. And I would just focus more on just like, hey, here is , here's a case study of where finance helped the growth market or the demand gen marketer do X, Y, or Z. It feels like for every 100 Excel shortcut shortcuts tutorials, there's like one person saying, hey, here's something I did with my marketing leader. So I would like reverse that.

[00:41:59] Host: Paul Barnhurst: Yeah, I hear you. I can speak to that. If I share something about Excel, I get a lot more views on any social media platform And when I talk about the soft skills, the experiences, those type of things and it's frustrating, sometimes you're like, okay, yeah, it's great to know Excel and I love Excel and I teach it, but so much more important, if I had to pick, like you, the business, partnering, the relationships, the being able to pick things up quickly, having a commercial understanding all that is more important at the end of the day, that's going to benefit you more and your business and their career than how quickly you can use five shortcuts in Excel.

[00:42:34] Guest: Renato Villanueva: Yeah.

[00:42:35] Host: Paul Barnhurst: I hear you.

[00:42:36] Host: Paul Barnhurst: All right. Are you currently using generative AI and if so, how?

[00:42:40] Guest: Renato Villanueva: I mean, our product is is really is is really like driven by a large language model. So again, going back to empowering the founder, our product is built around the concept that we want a founder to be able to interact and say, hey, the plan as it stands gets me to 5 million. What does it look like to get to ten? And because our product has all the inputs, it knows what those are. It knows what the quota is. It knows what the ramp is. These aren't inputs that the founder has to go and interact with, but it's something that the large language model can interact with. , and not only to like, adjust the model, but we want the large language model to provide context because like, you know, like you can make you can make Excel say anything you want. So the power of a finance leader is to come and give context. And so, like the vast majority of our product is built on this concept of leveraging large language models and agent to go and update inputs that are, that are set as a foundation within the model, and that the large language model can also provide context to the founder, that it's like, hey, like you can put five salespeople in October, but here are the things that you should be mindful of, like churn. You should be mindful of what recruiting help you need, what training help. It's like that context that we think of solid finance partner can give, and that's what we want our product to give. So that's like how we're using it within the product. But on a day to day basis, I mean, there's not a time that I'm typing up an email that I don't copy and paste into ChatGPT and I say, write this better for me, right? Like just for everything.

[00:44:04] Host: Paul Barnhurst: Yeah I hear you. You can use it all the time. It's. It's a great tool. I use it this morning for something, so I get it. All right. We're going to move on to our get to know you section. So we got four questions going to ask to get to know you better. First one what's a favorite hobby or passion you have.

[00:44:19] Guest: Renato Villanueva: Gosh man I love movies. I I'm just a big fan of like yeah, I just I love watching movies. I love to snowboard those two things.

[00:44:29] Host: Paul Barnhurst: Favorite genre. 

[00:44:30] Guest: Renato Villanueva: You know. It just depends because it depends whether I'm like in a mood to like, really think through a difficult concept. So like, yeah, you'll have a movie like arrival that really, you know, is a is like trying to get you to think about this concept of time. And, you know, you even have you even have movies like Dunkirk or, , you know, Saving Private Ryan. And that's just such a different genre from like hitman that's on Netflix right now. That's literally just meant to let you zone out for an hour and a half. , but I think, like, generally speaking, the genres that I love is like really thought provoking movies. , think like whiplash, Black Hawk Down, Saving Private Ryan, inception, Shutter Island, interstellar, , movies like that.

[00:45:14] Host: Paul Barnhurst: Got it. Love it. Thank you. What is one book you'd recommend to our audience if you could recommend one book?

[00:45:20] Guest: Renato Villanueva: Thinking fast and Slow? Yeah, it's a hard book to get through, but I think there's something about identifying and learning how deceived you are on a daily basis by your own brain. That's just fascinating to me. I think, like as I was reading it, I'm just like the craziest examples, you know? Do you have it on your bookshelf somewhere?

[00:45:41] Host: Paul Barnhurst: Yeah, I do, I have that on the shelf.

[00:45:43] Guest: Renato Villanueva: Like one of the examples that they talk about in the book is like the tip jar, where they did like an experiment where they had one tip jar with like just it was just a jar that said tips. Then they had one tip jar that had like tips, and it had a pair of like eyeballs on it. And the one with eyeballs on it just had massive, like a way larger amount of tips. Just because some consciously about someone like you feeling like someone was watching you, made you artificially like want to actually put in more. And so like, there's something so interesting to me that I'm just like, man, what about the things that I'm thinking about or decisions I made, like, was not me, but was like the, the, the autopilot version of me. So thinking fast and slow for sure.

[00:46:24] Host: Paul Barnhurst: Yeah, it's a great book. Daniel Kahneman I recommend it. I've read a lot of it. I listened to part of it. I need to read. I don't know if I've read the entire thing. I need to go back through it one more time, but I've really enjoyed it.

[00:46:34] Guest: Renato Villanueva: And there's like, there's a way easier watered down version of it that's called Predictably Irrational by Dan Ariely, and it's kind of like the same kind of same. It's like, but it's like 100 pages versus 500.

[00:46:47] Host: Paul Barnhurst: Yeah, yeah, it's a big book, but it's a great one. All right. So next question. Favorite travel destination? If you could go anywhere in the world tomorrow. Where are you going?

[00:46:56] Guest: Renato Villanueva: Hawaii.

[00:46:57] Guest: Renato Villanueva: Always. Hawaii. Yeah I'm obsessed with it. I think, , what I love about Hawaii So, like, I have family that lives in Miami. The beaches are are beautiful, but they're just busy. It's hard to find parking versus, you know, in Hawaii you can find a beach all to yourself. And it's just like, it's the one place I think you can travel. I think a lot of people are just like, oh, man, I need a vacation from my vacation. I, like, never feel that when I come back from Hawaii because I'm like, oh man, I got I got to relax. So big fan of Hawaii.

[00:47:24] Host: Paul Barnhurst: Nice, I like it. If you could have dinner with one person in the world, who are you taking to dinner?

[00:47:29] Guest: Renato Villanueva: Gosh, man, that's such a tough question. I think I think I'd probably be like Steph Curry. Probably spend more like, I think, , just I'm obsessed with the concept of people who were like, not giving who like, again, he has a Netflix doc, not an Apple TV documentary called underrated. , coming from like, you know, not like not a lot of expectation of him being like, the best shooter in in the NBA of all time. And. Oh, yeah. , yeah, I think I'd probably do that. Have dinner with him. Yeah, he was.

[00:47:59] Host: Paul Barnhurst: Underrated coming out of college. That's why there's a reason he played for Davidson and not Duke. And yeah, just continued on from there. So yeah I love those kind of underrated underdog stories. Are people just overachieved when anyone thought they were capable of?

[00:48:13] Guest: Renato Villanueva: Yeah.

[00:48:14] Host: Paul Barnhurst: Those are those are fun ones to see. So yeah, it'd be that'd be a great dinner. All right. If you could offer our audience one piece of advice to start being a better business partner today, what would it be?

[00:48:26] Guest: Renato Villanueva: Go talk to your leader. Go ask him to be like, hey, what do you think I suck at? I don't know, like you just. And he always goes and talks to its. Go and talk to the person you're supposed to be supporting. Just go and sit with them. Take them to lunch. Ask them what they wish they were getting from you where they think that you're failing. . Go. Yeah. Go ask them.

[00:48:47] Host: Paul Barnhurst: Go ask and address that. Make sense, I like it. All right, that really pretty much wraps up the interview. Last thing I'd like to ask if anyone wants to learn more about you, get in touch with you. What's the best way for them to do that?

[00:49:01] Guest: Renato Villanueva: Yeah. Just reach out on LinkedIn or just send me an email at Renato. I get parallel.com.

[00:49:06] Host: Paul Barnhurst: All right. Great.

[00:49:07] Host: Paul Barnhurst: So we'll put LinkedIn in there. And that's Renato at get parallel. You can check out his, company he's building there for, founders to help them with finance. And thanks for joining us today. Appreciate the time, Renato. Thanks for listening to FP&A tomorrow. If you enjoyed the show, please leave us a five star rating and a review on your podcast platform of choice. This allows us to continue to bring you great guests from around the globe. As a reminder, you can earn CPE credit by going to earmarkcpe.com, downloading the app, taking a short quiz, and getting your CPE certificate to earn continuing education credits for the FPAC certification. Take the quiz on earmark and contact me the show host for further details.