Ep. 331 — Joel Beyer: Foot to the Floor in an Old Jeep, Going 55

6 min read

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Episode Summary

You’re in the office after the executive meeting, staring at a hire decision, a new product line, or a piece of equipment, and the only honest question is: am I about to step on a $400K landmine? Most owners I talk to are pushing the throttle as hard as they can and getting passed by grandmas in minivans. Foot to the floor in an old Jeep, doing 55, working harder than everyone on the road and going the slowest. The other version is the Maserati in the dark: the engine’s there, but you can’t see ten feet ahead, so you crawl. I brought my new business partner Joel Beyer on to talk about how we’re fixing both. Joel ran a third-generation family business, went through a 17-company PE rollup with Matt, and now he’s the guy behind our financial dashboard offering. We got into what bad planning actually looks like (bookkeeping that can’t tell you which product line is making money), what good planning looks like (drivers tied to a Three-Statement Model that rolls forward every month against a locked plan), and the real reason most owners can’t answer is-this-worth-it: they have no clear view from today’s decision to the long-term equity value they actually want.

Top 10 Takeaways

  1. If you can’t trust your historicals, every forecast you build is a guess dressed up as a plan.
  2. Your chart of accounts has to be granular enough to tell you which product line is making money. One revenue line is flying blind.
  3. Drivers are just the equations behind your gut feel: spend X here, hire Y, conversion rate Z, revenue lands here.
  4. Churn doesn’t disappear when you grow. Bigger company, bigger churn dollar, and most plans never update it.
  5. A new hire is a cost on day one and revenue on month eighteen. Your model has to know both sides.
  6. Three data sources matter: accounting, workforce, and the custom operational data nobody connects to the financials.
  7. Normalize the data in the pipe, not in your accounting system. You don’t have to re-architect to start seeing clearly.
  8. Lock your plan in January. Don’t rewrite it. Measure against it monthly so you can prove your ability to predict.
  9. Run a roll-forward plan alongside the locked one. Every month of actuals updates your view of the equity target.
  10. Without a long-term equity target, every pivot is a guess. With one, every decision is a trade-off you can actually price.

Sound Bites

“I used to drive home and I had this old Jeep. I would have the gas pedal to the floor. The thing felt like it was going to explode and I was doing 55 on the freeway. So everybody was passing me. I was working harder than everybody. I was the slowest one on the road.” (@TBD) — Joel Beyer

“You can have a great engine and car and wheels and suspension and all that. But if you don’t have a clear view into the future, you’re just going to crash that much faster.” (@TBD) — Joel Beyer

“I’ve never met an entrepreneur that can’t tell a story, a really good story of where they’ve been, where they are, where they’re going. And then my always follow up question is prove it. And the prove it is in the numbers.” (@TBD) — Ryan Tansom

“Very few companies actually can tie future cashflow like that, have these drivers built, understand them, and then can tie it into future cashflow. Almost none have that.” (@TBD) — Joel Beyer

“If you’re an entrepreneur and it’s causing you to be so stressed because you don’t have a clear view into the future, you’re not sure if it’s worth it. Then it’s not worth it.” (@TBD) — Joel Beyer

About This Episode

Joel Beyer is Ryan’s business partner at Arkona and the operator behind the firm’s financial dashboard offering. He’s a third-generation family business owner who scaled a food brokerage business through systems and process automation before going through a 17-company private equity rollup alongside Matt Buskirk. Joel brings the rare combination of an entrepreneur’s instinct and a process-engineer’s discipline, which is why this conversation lands more like two operators talking shop than a finance lecture. This episode is part of the 2023 mini-series on growing the equity value of your company.

Resources Mentioned

  • Arkona Financial Dashboard — The financial planning analytics offering Joel built that connects directly to accounting packages for three-statement modeling and roll-forward planning.
  • Financial Assessment — Ryan’s 22-question diagnostic to see where you sit on the four-component financial foundation.
  • Jeff Campbell — Upcoming guest on tying marketing KPIs to financials.
  • Chris Sanchez (Mint CRO) — Upcoming guest on data engineering for marketing.
  • Jimmy Fritz — Past podcast guest and client referenced in conversation.

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