Chase Spenst
Q What do you do?
“I help founders build sustainable, cash flowing businesses that can survive without them. ”
Cash flow and profitability starts with knowing what is coming in and what is going out and ends with building sustainable systems… so that’s what I do. I provide everything from bookkeeping up to strategic roadmaps to create a plan and systematically execute the stacking of the cash.
I read numbers like most people see a picture. I see the machine that is a business - where things run smoothly, where they bottleneck, where they are wasted, where there’s not enough fuel.
Practically speaking, what that looks like is I provide bookkeeping, accounting, financial analysis and planning, and strategy around building businesses that are well oiled machines.
Q What steps did you take to get to where you are now?
It felt like a really winding path but looking back it is weird to see how all these things built this version of me and my business. I started out in healthcare finance leading turnarounds of distressed non-profit hospitals. My job was analyzing data to see where, in a $100mm company, there was opportunity. And turns out I was really good at it. I found millions of dollars, was promoted a few times until I was running business development and strategy for the company.
Eventually I left and joined a healthcare startup which went public on the NYSE 3 years later. The work was exciting and hard and the people were amazing but ultimately the lifestyle was unsustainable. 80+ hour weeks, 20+ spent on planes, a short 24 hours with my wife and dog for 3 years took its toll. I loved the startup energy and challenge of building a business and growing it but I wanted to get out of serving large clients who demanded 95% of your time for the massive fees they were paying.
I opened my first business, a cafe and bike shop in LA with my wife, and then my own consulting business. I learned all about build outs, retail, food and beverage, branding, growth, hiring, firing, and building a business that could run without me.
My consulting company had me working for a variety of businesses including a Private Equity fund out of Singapore for which I handled “special projects”... I went to fix businesses that were broken. I ran a private ski mountain and bar in Hokkaido, Japan; cleaned up a retail concept in Los Angeles; and scouted new bar locations in Shanghai.
Eventually I found the mix what I enjoyed, what I was good at, and what created the most value for the clients I most wanted to work with… and that become Good Operator.
Q How do you stand out in your field?
11-star service. We respond quickly, think about your business proactively, and communicate with you the whole way.
My aim is to deliver results and exceed your expectations about what a finance team can and will do. We don’t just check boxes for tax season. Our goal is not accurate tax filings. That’s a byproduct of what we do but not the goal. Our goal is your business is profitable and cash flowing.
I never found an accountant that actually delivered that so I built it myself.
Q What are you working on right now?
Currently we’re working on a product that guides founders from their current state to what we call S.P.A.C.E. Certified - meaning you have a business that is now a Sustainable, Profitable, Automated, Cash-flowing Enterprise. Cheesy? Sure. But be honest. Sounds pretty great right? Our goal is to help 1000 businesses achieve that.
Q What’s your style?
Unflinchingly Can-Do - This was a value at a startup I worked at and I love it. I wear a pin that says this on my “uniform” (yeah, I wear basically the same thing every day). It was such a good phrase that everyone knew exactly what it meant and what it looked like and you saw people live it. I look at the hard stuff not as something to be annoyed by or as an inconvenience… but as where the real value we provide is. When sh*t gets hard, that is when we win customers for life.
Pay for results - in both how we work and how I look for other partners and vendors, our unique (I think) perspective is that results are worth paying for. So rather than check a box for as cheap as possible, find someone who is going to deliver and pay them to do that. We price to get a result since that’s really what you’re paying for.
Q Out of all your slashies, which one do you wish you could do more often?
I’d like to learn and do more around no-code systems and tools to help 1-2 person businesses run like 6-10 person businesses. We love working with service businesses because there’s so much opportunity to build great cash flowing businesses from them. No-code tools can make that so much easier and the outcome so much better from a performance and lifestyle perspective.
Q What is frustrating you right now?
The constant need to over build and over think just about all of my tasks... including these questions
Q If you could hire someone for $20/hour, what would you have them do to make your day easier?
Turn my incoherent ramblings into podcasts and blog posts and newsletters.
Oh! And book appointments for me.
Q What do you wish you could have told yourself, when, and why?
Everyone you look up to as knowing more, making more, being further along, being more legitimate, being better… they all go there by making the mistakes you’re too scared to make. They didn’t start any better. They just got through the part where they didn’t know and made a bunch of mistakes.
Q If you could talk to an expert to gain more insight on something, what would it be about?
Marketing, sales, and no-code systems/automation.
Q What kind of opportunities/projects are you looking for?
Freelancers looking to build agencies, agencies looking to build companies, and founders looking to sell that company or just step back and just let the cash machine print. We’re looking for people looking to level up and want to start handling finances on that next tier.
Q Describe your ideal job/client/collaboration.
Ideal clients look at their business like a machine… maybe that right now they have to manually turn the cranks, but they want to get to where the engine runs itself. And yes, even creative businesses can do this. And no you don’t HAVE to step away. A lot of times it’s just building the business so you can focus on the ONE thing you absolutely love to do.
Q What is your rate?
We try to price reasonably and flexibly to meet you wherever you’re at but we make sure to price for getting results, not doing as little as cheaply as possible. Better to spend a little more and get the outcome you want than save a little money and always be disappointed you’re not getting results.
Success is not spending as little as possible, it’s getting the highest return on what you spend.
With that said…
Our services start at $500/mo for the very basics if you’re at that freelancer to agency jump. The small agency is probably $700/mo and up depending on how complex the business is and how much of the additional services you want.
When you’ve made the jump to high growth agency you’ll want more things like cash flow planning, financial reviews covering major cost drivers, project profitability, team utilization and other important metrics. That’s usually $1k-3k - again depending on how complex the business is and how much time you actually need from the team.
And when you really hit that big time, we can essentially become your full accounting team handling everything from bookkeeping, invoicing, payroll, all the way up to a fractional CFO starting at $3500/mo.
Q How should someone approach you about working together?
Email me at chase@goodoperator.com
OR
Fill out the contact form on comeingroundcontrol.com
Q Who is a creative you admire?
Big fan of Study Hall Creative who built our new website
tamicarey.com & outsourcedoptimism.substack.com
Absolutely LOVE the team at Tusk!
Q Oh! and… how do you stay creative?
I write and illustrate my own comics/graphic novels.
This member profile was originally published in May 2023