Jon Laudie has managed FP&A at some of the US’s most iconic companies: Netflix, the top subscription streaming service, Ancestry, the largest for-profit genealogy company in the world) 1800-Contacts, the world’s largest contact lens store, and Lucid, the visual collaboration suite.
Building on his 15 years of experience in FP&A, in April 2022 Jon was announced as the new CFO of Zerorez, a $150M-revenue leader in residential and home services (using non-toxic products) which operates in 70 markets.
Jon Laudie reveals his playbook for rising up the ranks from analyst to CFO and the methods he used to advance his career.
In this episode Jon speaks to Paul Barnhurst about:
- His experience at companies including Netflix, 1-800 Contacts, and Ancestry
- Metrics that mattered to FP&A in these roles and its importance for anyone in similar sectors
- A career-defining analysis that led to winding down a company and delivering gains for Ancestry
- The importance of raising your hand to get life-changing opportunities in your FP&A role
- Ancestry’s near-IPO and what he learned from the front seat finance experience
- The biggest opportunities and challenges FP&A face including the need to better grasp predictive analytics
- His favorite Excel function
Follow Paul Barnhurst on LinkedIn
FP&A Today is brought to you by Datarails.
Datarails is the financial planning and analysis platform that automates data consolidation, reporting and planning, while enabling finance teams to continue using their own Excel spreadsheets and financial models.
Paul Barnhurst:
Hello, everyone. Welcome to FP&A Today I am your host, Paul Barnhurst aka The FP&A Guy, and you are listening to FP&A Today. FP&A Today is brought to you by Datarails, the financial planning, and analysis platform for Excel users. Every week, we welcome a leader from the world of financial planning and analysis and discuss some of the biggest stories and challenges in the world of FP&A. We will provide you with actionable advice about financial planning and analysis today. This is going to be your go-to resource for everything FP&A. Today. I’m thrilled to have with me, Jon Laudie, welcome to the show.
Jon Laudie:
Great to be here.
Paul Barnhurst:
Yeah, I know. So a little bit about Jon. We were chatting before we started the podcast here and how we first met. I had reached out to him. I believe he was working at Ancestry at the time on LinkedIn and we had chatted back and forth and we realized we were both about 15, 20 minutes from where each other worked. So we decided to grab lunch. And I remember looking where he was at. It was trying to find somewhere in the middle, The spot in the middle was actually our state prison. And they had a burger joint that was, uh, served by the inmates that, you know, they actually cooked all the food. I remember saying, Hey, do you wanna meet here? I don’t remember the name of it. It was something prison burgers or something like that. And so we met there and literally, you know, the cooks and everybody, you could see their prison uniforms on as we’re sitting and eating. I’m guessing you remember that too, right? John?
Jon Laudie:
I do. I remember that. Well, I remember being, um, I knew nothing about where we were going, but you proposed this place. And I said, sure, whatever. And then I didn’t actually look at what it was until, until I was driving and pulled up to the prison and was so confused. And, it was in one of, you know, little building kind of an offsite building right there at the outside of the fence. It was, I remember the food being spectacular. So, uh, it was, it was a great, great lunch, but, uh, I’ve never been back there since, uh, I’ll just say,
Paul Barnhurst:
You know, actually funny story is I took one of my leaders there, like general managers of our businesses. He likes burgers. I go, Hey, we can go. And he had a sense of humor. I’m like, there’s a prison joint. He’s like what? And so every time he was in town, he’s like, we’re going to the prison place to eat. Right. So it became kind of a running joke and went there a few times with him.
Jon Laudie:
The food is spectacular. I think it’s called The Serving Time Grill maybe.
Paul Barnhurst:
Yeah. Serving Time Café, I think is what it was. Yeah. Yeah.
Jon Laudie:
That was a great time.
Paul Barnhurst:
That was fun. So a little more about John. He got his bachelor’s and master’s degree in business from BYU. He has 15 years of experience in finance extensively in FP&A, you know, he’s worked his way up from an analyst to, you know, senior leadership roles. He’s worked at a number of different companies that you’ve probably all heard of. He’s worked at Netflix, spent some time there, 1-800-CONTACTS, Ancestry among others. So, you know, he has a wealth of knowledge and we’re really excited to have him here. So maybe you could just take us a little bit more through your background. Tell us a little bit about yourself,
Jon Laudie:
John. Yeah, sure. Happy to, happy to do that. So, as you mentioned, I studied business management and finance in college. I also went back and got an MBA as well, uh, studying the same and, you know, as I, as I was going through school really wanted to make sure my first role out of school would be something that’d give me some broad exposure to a lot of different types of companies and a lot of different types of roles within finance, uh, be because I wasn’t sure what I wanted to do yet. I wasn’t sure exactly, you know, how I wanted my career to look, but I wanted to have the optionality to do a number of things. And you know I looked for roles that could, that could help set me up to do that.
Jon Laudie:
I did a few internships, tested the waters in some different areas, internships with one in equity research and, one in corporate development and, and acquisitions, and really, really fell in love with sort of the corporate finance side versus the equity side and decided that was where I wanted to point. And, uh, ultimately my experience through that internship helped me to land my first gig at Duff & Phelps (now Kroll) out in, in Palo Alto. So, I went out there and, and started my career doing financial advisory work with Duff & Phelps helping and supporting the clients there in, in the Silicon Valley with, uh, primarily with valuation around their M&A deals that they were doing at the time. It was, incredibly acquisitive time for many of those companies. And we had, you know, we had some, some really fun engagements come across the plate there.
Jon Laudie:
I really, really loved the experience in modeling and in, in getting deep into Excel and learning how to think of business, about a business at a high level. And often as we were on these calls with the clients, I would hear the people on the other side of the table, you know, talking about their business back to us and helping us to inform our models as we were building them. And I sort of became fascinated with, what does the other side of the table look like and what are they seeing and what are they, how are they coming up with these conclusions and these assumptions that they’re coming up with and, and how are they actually operating their business? And, that was something that became, you know, the highlight of my, of my job, there was always listening and having these discussions with these folks on the calls and, and learning about their businesses and the way that the finance folks on the other side were thinking about their business.
Jon Laudie:
And, so after, you know, some time with Duff & Phelps and, and really cutting teeth there, working too many hours um, and, uh, you know, there’s, there’s good and bad to that, by the way, there’s, there’s, uh, extra reps at bats, if you will. Sure. and after, after a while doing that, I had a friend who was working at Netflix, in Los Gatos, near San Jose. And, he always talked about how great it was, you know, this, this place is awesome. I love where I work. And I randomly threw a resume out one day on an open finance position that I saw there. And, and by dumb luck got an interview and, and everything sort of fell into place and got an offer. And, because of that, you know, experience, I’d sort of been interested in the finance side of the table and wanting to sort of experience that in a different way. It was really intriguing. And I jumped, I jumped out of, kind of the advisory side of the table and in, into the in-house side of the table there. And that’s where sort of my FP&A journey began. I was on the FP&A team there at Netflix. So I don’t know if that’s a, a good intro or what else you’re looking for there, but
Paul Barnhurst:
No, that’s great. I appreciate that intro. And I know you’re a finance person. When you say you wanna keep your optionality open. That’s the first thing I thought I’m like, I know I’m talking to a true finance guy. Well,
Jon Laudie:
That’s good. Check that box. Yeah.
Paul Barnhurst:
Pass. No. so yeah, maybe talk a little bit about, you said Netflix is where you first started. Was it what you expected after coming kind of from that M&A advisory, did you find, you know, FP&A a was what you expected, or what did you find when you first got into it?
Jon Laudie:
100% different? And, I had no expectations of what that might look like. Right. I had spent my life building, you know, DCF models and, um, thinking about the highest possible level of, of how, how does this company, how is it valued now? I think there’s a lot of benefit in getting that high level perspective of how somebody thinks about a business, but I had zero expectation of what, what this would actually look like being on, on sort of the other side and being inside. I loved it. I, I thought that, you know, I, I thought that maybe I’d do more of the same stuff, just do it in house. And it was the exact opposite of that. I was, I was figuring things out that I had no idea, you know, no business figuring out, you know, things like, hey, we have exposure in Brazil with our currency and, and our business there, and we have FX risk and let’s figure out how do we mitigate that?
Jon Laudie:
And, you know, I, I knew nothing about that, but got a chance to really just dig in with some of the folks there. Luckily, you know, one or two people did know a lot about that. And, we were able to dig in together and, and come up with strategies and propose them to the leadership team around, Hey, we, we think we should buy forwards. And, and, or we think we should not do anything because we’re, we’re naturally hedged in, in this country. And, and so, you know, thinking about hedging and thinking about, you know , cash flow and, not just cash flow, like statement to cash flow, like I might have gotten in my three statement models that I was building before, but, but actually what is the, you know, the ins and the outs this week and this month, uh, at a very detailed grain. And, uh, and how does that impact the way we might give guidance in the next quarterly earnings? Uh, all of that kind of stuff was, was entirely different than, than what I anticipated, but I, I really enjoyed digging in with, with a team of people to figure out what drove the business and, and how we could leverage that learning to, to better sort of forecast and, and anticipate what might be happening.
Paul Barnhurst:
I got it, it sounds like a really good experience, it’s amazing sometimes how you jump into something and realize, oh, this is what it’s really like, versus what you envision. If you don’t have expectations, you only have an idea in your head of what it’s going to be
Jon Laudie:
Like. Yeah, absolutely
Paul Barnhurst:
Makes a lot of sense. So, you know, I noticed you’ve, you mentioned when you were at Netflix, I think I saw this online and also Ancestry that, you know, you’ve looked at some international expansion opportunities, emerging businesses, you know, some of those type of things like new opportunities, whether it’s a new market, new product, maybe share a little bit about those experiences. Some of the things you’d learn from that. And then maybe advice you’d offer to somebody, you know, that’s looking at doing some of those types of analysis.
Jon Laudie:
Maybe the, the first thing I would say is it’s not always in somebody’s job description, you know, that you need to jump in and, and handle this specific, you know, task that’s happening in Germany for, for this business. Right. But, but I think raising your hand, uh, is something that I found just to be really impactful and, and helpful to me as I was developing and growing was, you know, we have this problem that somebody doesn’t know how to think about. And it’s, it’s in a country that we know not a lot about, right. We operate there, but there’s so much nuance and complexity to, you know, this, this international market that we’re, that we’re selling in. And, uh, somebody needs to just dig in and try and figure it out. And it may not, may have nothing to do with traditional finance or what you might think, uh, related to finance or accounting.
Jon Laudie:
It’s just operationally what’s going on. And, and how do we fit into that equation? And I think raising, raising your hand for that, you know, you’re talking about the advice that I might give, raise your hand and dig into complicated sticky situations, because the learning that comes from that, as well as the exposure to those that, you know, you’re working with across the business is, is, uh, incredibly impactful. And, um, I think for me, that was incredibly helpful in, in my development, as I moved through those roles, you know, I guess one other thing you mentioned at, at Ancestry, there’s a few emerging businesses that, that we had, and we were building up over time, kind of this portfolio of small brands that you know, came alongside with the broad, bigger brand of ancestry.com. And, you know, there were, there were some really interesting projects that I got to get involved in related to those brands.
Jon Laudie:
And, and one of them was, you know, this, this old older business that had been running forever and was still being sold in brick and mortar as, as kind of like a software you could pick up on the shelf at the store versus the online delivery that, you know, the rest of the business was. And, you know, the ability to partner with the leaders of that business and think about top to bottom, you know, what is our cost, what is our true cost in this business? And you think about the call center and, you know, the customer support of those customers who are buying in a brick and mortar is so different from somebody who’s subscribing online, you know, to your service. And, and so a, a big exercise sort of top to bottom across the whole P&L to figure out, is this actually a good thing for us to be doing still. In that case it wasn’t.
Jon Laudie:
And we decided to wind down that business and, and to be able to take that from beginning to end, and from top to bottom with the, the leaders of the company there was, was a great experience for me to see the whole picture of an operation, if you will apply finance sort of expertise to a, to a potential decision, and then run with a decision and sort of see that through to conclusion. And I think oftentimes working with these emerging brands, if you’re at a company where that’s something, that’s, you know, a thing it’s a great opportunity to get a different perspective on, on the business in general, and to get a different perspective on the way one decision impacts, 10 different areas versus, if you are working on a bigger brand, you may not see all of those ripples, you know, after the rock gets tossed in the pond.
Paul Barnhurst:
No, that’s great advice. And I, I love the part about raising your hand because those cross-functional experiences really help prepare you as you move up and help you understand the business, which is so critical to FP&A, you know, a lot of times people think it’s all about Excel and modeling and numbers, but that’s a small part of it. And, you know, I can speak a little bit, you know, on my end, not so much the emerging markets, but I had the opportunity when I was with American Express to do the analysis for shutting down some markets, shutting down some products and really looking at them saying, does it make sense anymore? Like you talked about, and in particular it was a travel card. One of those markets being Brazil, they have changed laws that can completely change the dynamics of the market.
Paul Barnhurst:
And it’s like, well, what do we do now? And, you know, even looked at, you know, different M&A things. And I also supported travelers’ checks. So that was a fascinating conversation because you know, that used to be a 20 something billion dollar a year business. It was the biggest part of Amex’s business for a long time. And obviously today not many people are buying travelers checks. So it was, you know, just a really good experience of seeing the other end. How do you, how do you wind down businesses? How do you think about them in different markets? How do you continue to, you know, be profitable when things have changed?
Jon Laudie:
And, and I think in order to on a project specifically like that in order to be successful, you have to bring people along for the ride and through the analysis, you know, in, in gory detail at times, and that’s complicated and doing that is, is so good for, it was so good for my development and my ability to break down something that was really complicated into something that could be communicated a little bit more easily, right? Because you’re not taking that message to the board in all, in all of its, you know, glory, you’re bringing a, a, a really high level summary and a recommendation. And to get to that high level summary and recommendation, there’s so much work that has to go in and you have to understand it all. And you have to really, you have to bring people along the journey with you, so that at the end of the day, when you’re telling that summarized output everybody already knows sort of they’ve come with you and they’re all with you. And I think if you don’t do that, you run into a lot more resistance and your ability to influence is sort of, uh, really limited.
Paul Barnhurst:
No, I really like the part of bringing them along for the journey, because that’s really what change management is about. And you know, when you’re doing any project, that’s going to have a big impact there’s a change management component. We don’t necessarily call it that. But it’s reality. Usually you just hear about that with, you know, digital transformation and putting in new systems and things like that. But you know that whole idea of getting people on board and bringing them along so that you’re not at the end, just trying to convince them that your spreadsheet’s right, that they’ve seen some of the, seen some of it along the way, and you have those people with you. So when you present to senior leaders that you’re aligned and that you’ve done the homework and you can feel comfortable in the decision you’re recommending, that’s, you know, really good advice and really important. You know, John, I know you’ve had a number of different roles, you know, worked at quite a few companies and you’ve worked up into senior leadership, you know at different companies. So maybe talk a little bit about that experience, how you, you know, how it’s been going from individual contributor to maybe managing a team, to managing some leaders who also have people just that experience. Talk a little bit about that.
Jon Laudie:
Yeah. Uh, look, I think so much of progression if you will in my case is really just about timing and luck. And I think that opportunities, you know, have to come up at the right time and you have to be positioned to take advantage of that when it, when it comes along. But I guess that’s, that’s what I would lead with is so much of progression is, is really just about timing and luck, you know, positioning and where you are. I think, you know, that’s not to say you, you don’t have to set yourself up for being that person and, and being the one who gets the nod when the opportunity arises. I think that’s key is setting yourself up to be the one that people think about, as an opportunity arises. Um, you know, I, I think that you mentioned specifically stepping from individual contributor into, into people manager.
Jon Laudie:
I had a bit of experience on this one that I thought might be interesting to share at Ancestry. You know, we were a small FP&A team, smallish, FP,&A team right there. Wasn’t going to be room to add a ton of analysts to report to me as a senior analyst. But I knew this was something that I wanted to develop. I wanted to be able to be a people manager. I knew that I was going to experience doing that before I would be ready to actually, you know, be the person that people think of to give the nod to when, when that opportunity arose. Yeah. So, what we did is we got creative and set up sort of this intern program. So I made a recommendation around, let’s get interns, in here on a rotating basis. And that was something that I could easily do, that wasn’t a big budget, you know, factor, but also gave me that opportunity to start managing somebody in a people management relationship.
Jon Laudie:
That was an awesome win, I think for the team just as a whole, but selfishly for me, it was a great win because I was able to start, you know, figuring some of that stuff out. And the minute that there was an opportunity for, you know, a real full time hire to come on and maybe where did we need to put them? And does the business need them in this seat or that seat, but once all the stars aligned and the business needed them in the seat where I was and where I was sort of leading, it was a natural, easy progression to say, yeah, John could be that guy because we’ve seen him do it. And we had this intern program in place. So I think that was a maybe less common path to people management, which was sort of getting it in an indirect way before the actual opportunity came along.
Paul Barnhurst:
No, that’s a great idea and a great way to get internships. And, you know, I’ve hired a few interns over the years and been really lucky to have some really good ones, but they’re, they’re generally, you know, an easy experience in the sense that you have them for a few months. So it’s not one of those where you feel like, okay, we, we, you know, there’s this huge investment in training somebody for a year and they don’t work out and that responsibility. So I like that. That’s a good approach. And that was a good idea on your part to one benefit the company, but also get that experience you want and help set yourself up for it.
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Paul Barnhurst
So, you know, what would you say to people who wanna move up into leadership? You mentioned a little bit, but if you were to give kind of one piece of advice, maybe to those analysts out there right now, they’re like, Hey, I wanna be a manager. You know, someday I wanna be a CFO or, you know, whatever, a senior leader, what would be the, if you’re going to give them one piece of advice, what would that be?
Jon Laudie:
I’ll throw a few things out there and, uh, maybe we can pin it down to one or, or let it be a few. But you know, one thing that I think is important to do with every advancement is that you’re already sort of operating at a level where people can see you in that seat before you’re actually in that seat. I find that, you know, that the people who are being promoted or who are getting those advancement opportunities, they’re already sort of at the level that they’re being promoted to before they’re promoted. And It’s like, Hey, I’ve been doing this job for six months, 12 months, you know, but now I officially got the title and, uh, that’s fine. I think that’s just sort of the way it goes. A lot of times now, other times it’s going to be directly, Hey, now you’re in this seat and everything changes day one, but I think more often than not, you’ll find that things aren’t changing day one, you’re, you’re sort of already in that seat. It sounds like you’d agree with that.
Paul Barnhurst:
I had that experience myself, for sure.
Jon Laudie:
And, and I think, you know, as, as you’re looking to make advancements and I just speak from my own experience, I think that taking a seat at the table and sort of forcing a seat at the table for yourself in ways that you can has been key. And so as I’ve, you know, tried to help others come along and figure out how they, how do you advance your career and how do you figure this, this out for, for that next step? It’s often about asserting yourself a little bit and saying, hey, this is something that I think I can own top to bottom, but, but not just saying the words, but then actually taking a seat and coming up with ideas and coming up with recommendations and coming up with solutions. And I think FP&A, in general, is so much about influence and, and partnership.
Jon Laudie:
And look, I think, I think everybody realizes that and knows that about FP&A, but the more you can do that, and the more you can position yourself to be set up to influence the business and to have relationships of trust out there in the business and people advocating for you, that’s what equals, you know, success and progression in every sense of the word. Anytime you look at someone who’s had an advancement or who’s promoted or, or been, you know, moved up that ladder it’s, it’s always, almost always, you can point back to not just that they were great at Excel, not just that they were great at, you know, an analysis, like that’s important, those are table stakes. But I think that the advancement comes when you’ve got people in the business who trust you, they rely on you and you’re able to influence the business through them and through your analysis. And I think that’s, that’s my number one, you know, bit of advice. And I speak that, I guess, just from my own experience, I know there’s a lot of people’s, you know, perspectives and journeys on that, but, but mine has been that.
Paul Barnhurst:
Sure. You know, and so, as you were mentioning that the influence part reminded me early in my career, I learned a lesson the hard way. I had some ideas and I was trying to get the rest of the business on board. My boss liked it, but I thought just because it made sense to me, and it was logical that I could get everybody to buy into it. And I really didn’t understand that, no, you gotta influence and bring them along and help them understand. And, and it was more just like, but, but this is what we should be doing. It makes sense. It’s right. And yeah, it never happened because I had no idea what, you know, how to really influence people. I just thought because, well, I thought it was a good idea and it made sense to me and my boss that we could just get everybody on board. And I’ve really, you know, since I learned the importance of the art to influence and really, you know, working with people and helping bring them along and help them being part of the journey so that they feel like they’ve been involved in that solution. So I think that’s great advice on the influencing side and it really, you know, it’s a little bit of science. It’s a little bit of art.
Jon Laudie:
Yeah. I think that’s right. And I think to be able to effectively do that, you have to understand the underlying economic engine of the business, right? You have to, you can’t just influence people without actually understanding what’s going on, you know, behind the scenes and how the main KPIs or levers of the business are actually, you know, driving the economic engine behind the scenes. And I think finding ways to tie your work into those key levers is key. And then it can evolve from there into, you know, now that I understand that I can go have a real discussion with the head of marketing or the head of product about marketing strategy, product roadmap, hiring plans with the people team and the, the relationships that you can then generate of, Hey, this guy understands my business. This person understands what’s going on in my, in my part of the world. We can have a real discussion here and brainstorm together and figure things out. You know, suddenly you’re in a different world. You’re, you’re now speaking the same language. You are not somebody that they have to get approval from. You’re not somebody that has to check a box or has to show them where they’re overspending their budget or underspending their budget. You’re now a partner with them and driving their specific part of the business. And, and that’s where influence, you know, comes from right. It comes out of those experiences,
Paul Barnhurst:
You know, and speaking to that, it reminds me, I worked in one business where, you know, I’ve always prided myself on really trying to get to know the business. You talk about the economics and understanding how it works. And I knew I was having influence when I was sitting in a meeting and someone’s like, well, they were asking me, well, what should be the price for the product? And I’m like, well, you know, my job is finance is to make sure the margins work. You know, you guys should be looking at what the price is, but the fact that they trusted me enough and they were looking to me for that. And, other things like that were advice where it was beyond finance in different areas. Because they trusted my judgment. I’m like, okay, I got the seat at the table at the same time. It’s helping them understand, look, here’s what I’m here for. I can give you my thoughts, but you know, these are really things as a business you need to decide. And so it was, you know, it was a good learning experience to really feel like, all right, I belong and I’ve, you know, I’m making an influence here. And that was later in my career after I learned from the heart, you learned the hard way that it wasn’t just about well, but that’s a good analysis. So just trust me.
Jon Laudie:
Trust me. The Excel is right. Except for that 99% of the time the Excel is actually not right.
Paul Barnhurst:
But that’s a whole other story. Excel’s never wrong.
Jon Laudie:
Yeah, that’s right.
Paul Barnhurst:
That’s right. So, you know, I know you’ve worked in a lot of different industries, so maybe I know you’ve worked for an online retailer here, uh, 1-800-CONTACTS. Can you talk a little bit about maybe some of the key metrics that you track for an eCommerce business?
Jon Laudie:
Yeah. It’s been a really interesting time at 1-800-CONTACTS. You know, we, I’ve learned a lot from, from my time, working specifically with this online retailer and what we do is, is very detailed in terms of daily and weekly and monthly, quarterly, annually , tracking the KPIs of the business, tracking the health of the business, tracking the, you know, the underlying KPIs, which, which are moving on a daily basis. And so at the highest level you’re, you’re watching, okay, how many orders were placed today? You know by new customers and how many orders were placed today by reordering repeat customers? So obviously everything sort of that’s what drives the revenue, but behind the scenes, how many marketing dollars am I spending to go and acquire those orders? So cost per order. What’s the LTV of the customers that I’m acquiring and what’s my LTV to Cap ratio there.
Jon Laudie:
And, and are we in a good balance on how much we’re spending today for the lifetime value that we’re acquiring out of these people? You know, I think that’s something that, um, we’re always constantly monitoring and that’s not just, you know, I’m just 1-800-CONTACTS. That’s, that’s been at every sort of consumer-facing brand I’ve worked with. Those are the main things that we think about. Additionally, we’ve gotten really deep, you know, recently into cohorted retention and looking at groups. The beauty of, of place like 1-800-CONTACTS as we have, you know, 20 plus years of history of data, right. This company’s been around a long time and we can look at the cohort from 2001 and say, how have they retained over time? And from 2003 and what was different in 2007 and what was different in 2012, and there’s so much you can learn from that.
Jon Laudie:
And it’s easy to get lost in that. But also there’s, there’s a ton of learnings on what we think our retention can be. And that gives a lot of comfort when you’re forecasting a business as well, because with this recurring revenue model of retention and reorder behavior in the business if you can get a, a good pulse on what that cohort’s going to do that you’re acquiring this month and next month and the following month a lot of that revenue is semi baked, right? You have to go execute as a business and make sure that everything’s working to get those orders through the door. But, um, I, I would say that retention and cohort analysis is, is really key to, uh, to the business
Paul Barnhurst:
Now. And, and I think that’s true for, like you said, any consumer facing business, you know, the most interesting cohort analysis that I did was when I worked for American Express, because we had to, uh, look at travelers checks and in Cashman’s rates and determine how much was never going to be in cash, because you could actually take that as breakage or abandon property. So it was so backwards from your typical cohort analysis, because the, the less people who cashed it, the more revenue you took to the P&L and you’re going out 40 years for different currencies of history and trying to forecast what each of them are going to look like at the end of year 40. And so that was a really unique cohort analysis when you mentioned that, you know, having 20 years of data and we had lapses in some of the data and you know, like different products, there are a number of different products and currencies. And so cohort analysis is really kind of, it’s a fascinating area with a lot of, a lot of complexity to it.
Jon Laudie:
Yeah. I think that’s right. And the data technical needs are super complicated. When you think about the curve of how many data points there are on, who came back on day one, day, two, day three, but every day is, is its own unique cohort. And, so you run into this infinite number of possibilities of where your prediction could fall and, and your predictive model there becomes really complex. And so putting that into a system that can handle that is one option, but you know, Excel would get overloaded with that immediately. And so, it’s really about dialing back. Okay. I don’t need all of these data points. I just need some that are actionable and figure out what those look like. And we’ve been kicking that around, you know, for the last six months at 100 Contacts, figuring out, okay, how do we simplify this enough to get actionable insight out of the, out of the data here and, and something that’s manageable within a tool that we have, you know, I think a future state would be get the tool that can do it all and, and, and, you know, partner with somebody in, in the data science side and, or bring that expertise in, in house.
Jon Laudie:
I know that’s a hot topic FP&A right now is where does data science, data science live? but, uh, just in general, let’s make that better over time. But day one, let’s get to something that’s actionable that we can start with as a first step and then move forward.
Paul Barnhurst:
Yeah, I know. I like that. So you get something that’s actionable as a first step and, you know, we had on, and the, the episode, but we had a guy by the name of John King who works at Walmart. He was talking about, you know, just a huge amount of data and, you know, the systems they use. You could imagine how much the eCommerce platform and the online stores, how much data they generate for something like Walmart. And he talked about how you have to be able to pull back, you know, very small data sets to do that analysis, to try to figure out how I get something actionable because right. None of us as individuals can handle millions of records and analyze that we have to figure out how to get something small enough that I can work with it. And sometimes you have to start with analyzing the millions and letting the computer do the work, but how do you get that to the point where you can keep it simple and explain it to somebody and use it? It’s a real challenge. I think we’re all struggling a little bit today, right? Data has just exploded.
Jon Laudie:
Uh, I think one other thing, just backtracking a little to the sort of the KPIs. I think one thing that we found to be really helpful is to look at unit economics too. And I didn’t mention that before, but that’s something else that gets monitored on a very regular basis. And oftentimes it’s hard to, you know, think through, right? There’s the variable expenses, there’s the fixed expenses. And, how do you determine what actually matters when you’re looking at the unit economics model? It all matters, but to some extent, what can I actually drive and control versus what I can’t ? And, I think getting a framework around, around that for each unique product and, or each unique business line, is key and is something that, you know, we think a lot about and, you know, I’ve thought a lot about it and my other roles as well.
Paul Barnhurst:
Yeah, no, that’s great. Great thing to mention unit economics and, you know, there’s always discussion of how do you allocate certain things fixed and variable costs and work through all that. I mean, and it becomes a challenge of, you gotta really think about what are the things that can be controlled, what are the things that matter? And those can be different depending on the product and the business line. And sometimes even the way you look at the P&L versus reality can vary because of decisions that were made on how to allocate things, which benefits different businesses differently. So that’s, I think that’s a great thing to remind people is really digging in and understanding those economics beyond just what the system may be telling you. Because sometimes I know I’ve seen those experiences where it’s like, okay, here’s what the system says now here’s the adjustments I’ve made. Here’s why now let’s talk about reality. Not what shows up on the P&L.
Jon Laudie:
Yeah, yeah, exactly. Right.
Paul Barnhurst:
But yeah, you can relate to that one. You’ve had that experience
Jon Laudie:
A hundred percent.
Paul Barnhurst:
So, as you look back over your career, if you were going to list one accomplishment, you’re most proud of. So if I’m giving you a job interview and I ask you, Hey, John, you know, as you look back over your career, what accomplishment are you most proud of? What are you going to tell me?
Jon Laudie:
I think there’s a lot of things that I would look back and say, you know, these were pivotal moments and things that I was really proud of. I think that the experience as of right now, and this is ever evolving right, as we all move forward in our own journeys here. But, uh, as of right now, I think there was an IPO process that we kicked off when I was at Ancestry. And, um, I was in a position where I’d been working closely with the CFO on all things, investor relations and that got me close, close enough to that side of the world where, when we were talking about IPO, I was included in that small group. And again, this was a point in time when I probably had no business being where I was.
Jon Laudie:
And this was sure this was, you know, a factor of, of luck and timing of me being in that position where I was somebody that they looked to say, hey, come along for this ride with us, let’s go figure this out. And it was a huge task. When you think about drafting the S1 and partnering with accounting on what that might look like, uh, as well as, uh, how do we talk about the business and sitting in the meetings with the leadership team around, how do we actually talk about the business and the KPIs and educate, you know, through the S1 business section, what that actually all looks like, and then to creating the presentations where we can talk to analysts about what this business is and, and how to think about the, the historical performance and the go forward performance and, and what the TAM looks like.
Jon Laudie:
And, and, and then ultimately rolling all of that together into, you know, one package and story that then we went, could go on a road show and actually meet with people in person and take them through the story and to be able to come along for that journey. It was a highlight of my career so far, just because of the way I saw the way I saw the leadership of the team pull together a strategic story and a forward look into where we can be five years from now, 10 years from now as a business. And then also my, you know, uh, my, my finance sort of approach to that, or spin on that, which was being able to build the financial story and build the slides and talk about the financial health of the business, and then to go along for that journey on how do we tell these analysts and go on the road show and, and talk about it was, was so impactful. Now the business never actually got to the IPO, never rang the bell, but got through the journey enough of the way that it was. Uh, it was, it was a highlight for me.
Paul Barnhurst:
No, that’s cool. I’m sure that would be a great experience. And I’ve done a little bit more one time, the deal fell apart, like you mentioned, but I was involved a little bit in preparing some of that and doing some of that work at a much lighter level, but that’s fascinating. I could see where really being with the leadership and on the strategic side would really be a great learning experience. And I remember when Ancestry had talked about going public. I remember that whole time. And I was, I was thinking in my head, I don’t think they went public. Right. So you, you clarified that for me. That’s what I had thought.
Jon Laudie:
Yep Got, got close. It was, and, and partnering with the bankers on that was actually unique and in its own way too. And I feel like a great learning experience for me, because again, I hadn’t been you know, sell side or excuse me an IPO banker, for example, before in my experience. But to hear them think about how they model this and how they create a simplified model that allows you to beat and raise as you, you move forward into guidance. And I think all of that was fascinating as well. So there’s just so much that, you know, in, in the short four month timeframe, that that was, so much insight that I had just gained around how, how people think about a, a business and investing in a business that was incredibly impactful.
Paul Barnhurst:
No, I could see that and I’d love to see that whole process. I mean, it’s always fascinating, so that’s a great opportunity. I’m glad you, you know, had that experience. So, you know, one other question here for you is you look at, you know, FP&A, and you look kind of into the future. What do you see as maybe the biggest challenge and the biggest opportunity for FP&A moving forward?
Jon Laudie:
Yeah, I think, I think a challenge
Jon Laudie:
Maybe I’ll call this an opportunity. I think the opportunity for FP&A is to get better at predictive analytics. And I think to leverage the new technologies that are coming out around AI and plugging that into the right data sources and being able to automate some of what we all do really well in Excel and have done forever. And I think you can never fully automate that, right? That’s something that you still have to have the brain on, and the eyes on. But I think that leveraging the data that we have in new ways and in more efficient ways is, uh, is going to be key moving forward. And I think that’s, I think that’s a great opportunity. I think the challenge maybe within FP&A that I’ve experienced is sometimes the, the buy in of the business and educating the business on what can best in class FP&A look like, and how can it really benefit this organization and turning FP&A from sort of the policemen to the strategic partners, because I don’t think it’s, it’s nearly as compelling to be the-policeman as it is to be helping drive decision making, helping enable, excuse me, decision making at the business through, through sound analysis that that is cross functional and, you know, top to bottom in nature.
Paul Barnhurst:
I think there are great answers there and agree with, you know, data, it’s a huge challenge. How do we get predictive? How do we get smarter about it? How do we manage it as complexity grows? And I really like the opportunity of how do we not be the policeman, right? We’ve all heard it and seen it where it’s like, ah, I hate working with finance. You guys are just no people, right? And it’s like, you’re like, well, there’s risk here. Of course there’s a risk we’re in business, you know? And so becoming those value creators, those enablers, strategic internal consultants partners. And I think that’s a great opportunity. And I know when I’ve been able to do that in my career, it’s so much more rewarding than when I feel like I’m just kind of pushed to the side and just report on the numbers. We don’t need you for anything else.
Jon Laudie:
I, a hundred percent agree.
Paul Barnhurst:
Good. Well, I know we’re, we’re wrapping up toward the end of our time here, and it’s been a lot of fun. Just a couple more questions here for you is one. We always, we like to ask every guest this a little more personal question, something unique about you, something people wouldn’t find online that you could share.
Jon Laudie:
So I come from a large family, so 11 kids in my family. I have 10 siblings, one of 11, and it’s a party all the time. <laugh> whenever there’s a family get together. In fact, this weekend we’re all going to be getting together again for a mini family reunion of sorts. And so when you take immediate siblings, parents, and then just, you know, spouses and children of immediate siblings, it’s pushing 40 at this point. And so it’s, it’s a party. And you know, there’s, there’s a couple of different generations of children because the kid years spanned so many years that you have, I, part of the older generation in my family of children, I would say as the fourth, and then there’s kind of the middle crew. And then there’s the sort of the younger generation. And it’s been, it’s been a fun life of getting to know my younger siblings who I didn’t really know growing up because I had kind of moved out as they were still really young. So it’s, that’s something you might not know about me otherwise.
Paul Barnhurst:
No, I didn’t know that. And that’s a big family. I, uh, I thought I had a big family. I grew up with seven. My dad was the youngest of 10. And so I can relate to the family reunions going as a kid. And, you know, I can remember having cousins that were as old as my dad because of the age difference. And so I could relate to that. And then his dad was one of 14, so, you know, go to the founder reunions and you’re like, who’s, who’s who,
Jon Laudie:
Yeah. Don’t know who’s who anymore. Well, seven is nothing, uh, nothing small, so no, no need to feel like you’re, uh, like you’re not quite there on size.
Paul Barnhurst:
Ah, you know, we’re all different, but yeah, Eleven’s a big one. I’m sure it kept your, uh, parents busy for sure.
Jon Laudie:
I think that’s the truth. Yeah.
Paul Barnhurst:
And kids in general, keep parents busy. That’s just the truth.
Jon Laudie:
Yeah that is, that is absolutely true.
Paul Barnhurst:
So this is the question we like to ask everybody is, you know, our sponsor is Datarails and they, uh, big, uh, big users of Excel. They have an Excel platform that they’re built around. And so what’s your favorite Excel function?
Jon Laudie:
You know, I, this question, I never give a satisfying answer. So I apologize in advance. I don’t have, you know, a really complicated Excel function that I love. I, I don’t. In fact, I think that I prefer simple. I prefer simplicity and, and any model I ever make, I prefer to break it down into so many small pieces that you don’t need a complicated formula. And I realized that doesn’t scale as well as, you know, some, some other models can and should, but it’s the way I think about it. And it’s the way I approach models in Excel. So I do like, I do like some good lookups, you know, I’ve been exploring X lookup a little bit lately, uh, trying to, you know, benefit from that because there’s, there’s a lot of power there. That being said, I think that the overarching, uh, Excel function that I like is, is actually just keep it simple and use such make it so simple that you don’t have to use a complicated, uh, complicated formula.
Paul Barnhurst:
There’s some great advice there. And I’ve, I’ve said this before, when I hear that, you know, the, keep it simple is simple, is hard. Complexity is easy. It’s often easy to write a complex formula to solve it. But as you mentioned, breaking it down into simple steps can be hard because you really have to understand it. So I think, you know, there’s something to be said for that and not just Excel, but just in general, in business, in life being able to break it down to the simple level and keep it easy. Yeah.
Jon Laudie:
Love that.
Paul Barnhurst:
All righty. So last, last question for you here. If somebody was starting an FP&A today, so just starting their career, what advice would you give them?
Jon Laudie:
I think that the best piece of advice and I got this, you know, early on as well, is find a mentor who you can mirror your path after. And so find somebody who, either you work with or, you know, or, and you may not know this day one, right? This may be something that you figure out over time, but you definitely won’t know this day. One, this will be something you have to figure out over time. Find somebody who, has been there and has charted a path that you think you would like to follow and then follow them and talk to them and learn from them and figure out what worked and then pivot, because you’re going to realize after a little while you don’t wanna follow exactly their path, you’re going to wanna follow your own path, but you’re going to know enough from that experience of learning from the beginnings of their path, that you’re going to know where you wanna go.
Jon Laudie:
And so, I think that’s something that I definitely feel like that’s the piece of advice I would give. And then I think for somebody that something that they can do on day one in FP&A so often finance, you think it’s all about how do I, how do I get a really great Excel model? How do I get really tight on these numbers? I think on day one, every finance, FP&A professional should be thinking about relationships and communication and trust because ultimately that’s what I think that’s what will make anyone successful. And honestly, I think that’s what the business needs out of FP&A more than anything else. The data has to be good that the numbers have to be good, but, uh, without those other components of, you know, communication relationships and trust it, it won’t actually be as impactful as it can be.
Paul Barnhurst:
Great advice. Not much I can add to that. I like it. Relationships, communication and trust. I would definitely help anyone starting out from day one to build that. So John, it’s been a pleasure having you on the show. I’ve really enjoyed it. And I’ve enjoyed our friendship. Look forward to watching you as you continue to grow in your career. And I’m excited for our audience to get the opportunity to, you know, listen to this and learn about you. So thanks for being on the show, Jon.
Jon Laudie:
Thanks, Paul. Great to be here. Maybe we’ll Have to, to grab lunch at the serving time cafe here pretty soon.
Paul Barnhurst:
Yes. We might have to do that. We might have to go to the new prison though. Obviously if they have one, since they moved everybody now that’s right. That’s right. Well, thanks again, Paul.