Run the Numbers
CJ Gustafson
Run the Numbers is a twice-weekly podcast about financial metrics and business models, designed for ambitious people operating tech startups. It's a collection of things host CJ Gustafson (CFO at Partstech and writer of Mostly Metrics) has learned and thought about in the trenches as a tech CFO.
This show is meant to serve as a playbook of sorts for the stuff CJ wishes he knew earlier in his career, both from experience and from copying people smarter than himself.
Topics frequently touch upon Startup SaaS Metrics, Annual Budgeting, Financial Forecasting, Headcount, Equity, Dilution, and Fundraising – and how all of these drive business performance and growth.
This show is meant to serve as a playbook of sorts for the stuff CJ wishes he knew earlier in his career, both from experience and from copying people smarter than himself.
Topics frequently touch upon Startup SaaS Metrics, Annual Budgeting, Financial Forecasting, Headcount, Equity, Dilution, and Fundraising – and how all of these drive business performance and growth.
Episodes
Mentioned books
19 snips
Mar 26, 2026 • 55min
AI Pricing and the Hidden Growth Lever Most CFOs Ignore
Kunal Agarwal, CFO of Gorgias and former finance leader with private equity and venture experience, joins to explore AI-driven pricing and finance as a growth engine. He discusses usage- and outcome-based pricing, modeling LLM inference costs, optimizing model mix for efficiency, and treating order-to-cash as a strategic lever to reduce friction and boost growth.
Mar 23, 2026 • 57min
What It Takes to Go Public Today | Inside the IPO Process with RBC’s Federico Acabbi
Federico Acabbi, an RBC investment banker specializing in cybersecurity and infrastructure software, walks through why security spending holds up while horizontal software feels pressure. He explains what it takes to go public today, how IPOs are priced and underwritten, and why scale, diligence, and investor mix matter in modern listings.
18 snips
Mar 19, 2026 • 56min
The Anatomy of Financial Bubbles | Lessons From 200 Years of Market Panic
Aman Verjee, a financial historian and investor who wrote A Brief History of Financial Bubbles, breaks down recurring patterns in market panics. He explains a precise definition of a bubble. He explores cognitive biases, when bubbles leave lasting infrastructure or skills, links to fraud and policy drivers, and whether AI today resembles past manias.
15 snips
Mar 16, 2026 • 1h 3min
Marketplace Economics | Faire CFO Jason Lee
Jason Lee, CFO of Faire and former Square finance lead, explains how Faire links indie brands with local retailers. He covers marketplace mechanics, transaction-based recurring revenue, predictability of B2B buying, metric ownership, ROI as a portfolio framework, and rebuilding valuation through disciplined cost and resource choices.
10 snips
Mar 12, 2026 • 45min
Blockchain.com CFO on How Crypto Exchanges Actually Make Money
Mike Wilcox, CFO of Blockchain.com with a background in capital markets and crypto finance, breaks down how platforms serve retail and institutional users. He covers revenue models, brokerage versus exchange mechanics, the value of first-party data in local markets, liquidity and treasury practices, and the tech and execution edges that drive spreads and growth.
46 snips
Mar 9, 2026 • 56min
Venture Debt Explained: How Startup Lending Actually Works | Marshall Hawks
Marshall Hawks, a 20+ year venture lending veteran and author of Venture Debt Deals, walks through how startup lending is sized and structured. He covers the Series A/B sweet spot, why lenders underwrite the likelihood of a next raise, differences between banks and private credit, the three real repayment sources, and practical tips to run a venture debt process without blowing legal budgets.
29 snips
Mar 5, 2026 • 57min
How Superhuman Structures Its Analytics Team | Chris Byington
Chris Byington, Head of Analytics at Superhuman Mail, builds analytics teams that own metrics, OKRs, and forecasting. He discusses where analytics should sit in a company and why dashboards fail without a growth model. He covers hub-and-spoke embedding, pre-committing actions before analysis, setting quantitative outcome targets instead of ship goals, and when self-serve analytics truly works.
16 snips
Mar 2, 2026 • 51min
The Economics of Marketplaces: Take Rates, Middlemen, and Power
A fast romp through 5,000 years of marketplaces, from ancient trading hubs to Amazon and Craigslist. They dig into take rates, why fees sometimes blow up and when platforms turn into risky retailers. The conversation explores mobile mindshare, vertical unbundling, Facebook Marketplace’s unrealized potential, and how AI may change discovery, trust, and the middleman’s role.
11 snips
Feb 26, 2026 • 58min
The $150B Secondary Market and the Future of Venture Liquidity | Mike Jung
Mike Jung, Co-founder and Managing Partner at Founders Circle Capital, an investor in structured liquidity and growth-stage secondaries. He discusses the rise of structured secondaries and a $150B market, how companies now control private liquidity, designing tenders for founders and employees, and where AI-driven growth changes timing and risk for investing.
Feb 23, 2026 • 1h 1min
Minted’s CFO: Half the Year Happens in One Month
Mateo Bryant, CFO of Minted and former operator at Uber and Amazon, scaled marketplaces globally and speaks multiple languages. He discusses Minted’s life-event flywheel and decades-long customer value. He breaks down extreme seasonality where half the year happens in one month. He also covers localization wins and mistakes when launching in Latin America.
