The FP&A Guy

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Episode 88: How to win at FP&A with Psychology, Strategy and Tradeoffs with Taylor Otstot

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Show Notes

Taylor Otstot is VP of Finance at Dashlane, and former Senior Director of Finance at GoDaddy. He joined GoDaddy a year before their IPO and was there for eight years as the domain registrar and web hosting company scaled from $1.5 billion to $4 billion revenue. “By the time I left, I was supporting about a billion and a half of that revenue, and I was running a team of about 14", Taylor says. "So not only was I part of a business that was going through a lot of growth, but personally had to go through a lot of growth.”

In this episode, Taylor reveals the psychological skills and strategy he uses to win in his career.

  • Printing Excel files (aka the worst budget he has ever experienced)

  • Why every conversation in finance is really a conversation about tradeoffs?

  • Letting go of what “made you great” when managing an FP&A Team

  • Psychology learnings that have transformed my finance career and how you can apply them to your career

  • Eight Lessons Learned the Hard Way, Reflection from Eight Years at GoDaddy.

  • How a hard experience showed him that in finance, “ titles unlock doors, but that doesn’t mean you’ll be invited in”

  • Why I am a big fan of decision frameworks and breaking out of your “normal default positions”

  • Burritos vs tacos and finance decision-making (with lessons for business reviews and business partnerships)

  • Why the “safe choice” isn’t normally the right choice in finance

  • Secrets to building a high performing team

  • The big Sales comp revelation

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