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MAURICIO MERIGO




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Mauricio Merigo







INTRODUCTION


FINANCIAL SERVICES WITH AN ENTREPRENEURIAL FOCUS.



ABOUT


MY APPROACH TO BUILDING
THE TECH BRANDS OF TOMORROW.



I was born in Mexico City in the 1980’s, Engineer by blood and Financer by
heart, I have worked for companies like GM, Toyota, Honda and PPG creating and
managing teams of 200+ people in fast-paced projects.

After 10 years working for others, I decided to work in my own projects, and I
have co-founded 4 successful companies and helped structure and raise capital
for other 3.

I am on the board of fin-tech, construction, biotech and edu-tech companies, and
am a specialized auditor for a top-10 global auditing company.

My main attributes are my focus on processes and accountability, as well as a
keen sense for financial analysis and business structuring.

I work with companies from all around the world, and can do business in English,
Spanish and French.


+10

Startups


45%

Average ROI


6

Companies board member


+1M

USD Invested

For startups


MY APPROACH TO BUILDING
THE TECH BRANDS OF TOMORROW.



I like working with startups because the financial structure is still malleable
and you can generate real change and see the results straight away.

I offer personalized financial services, like a Corporate CFO would, with the
benefit of 10+ years working with startups and fast-growing companies.


I work a lot so I don’t have to work again. I automatize as much as possible and
train people on how to continue executing so I can move to something new. Have
the numbers and financial presentation of a listed company without the fixed
costs.

I can point out big red-flags that potential investors will find when reviewing
your financials, and sketch out a plan to solve them without affecting your
growth.

The #1 reason why startups fail is running out of cash. And most of them don’t
even know they are heading that way until a few months before it happens. Let me
help you avoid this happening to your startup.


What I do for Startups:

 * Board Member and Advisor
 * Financial Services
 * Operational Services
 * Investor
 * Capital Raising

Experience


I HAVE HELPED OVER 10 STARTUPS, IN DIFFERENT INDUSTRIES, IN BOTH FINANCIAL
SERVICES AND STRUCTURING, AS WELL AS CAPITAL-RAISING.


AS AN INVESTOR, I KNOW WHAT TO LOOK FOR WHEN EVALUATING A STARTUP.



With partner companies I have worked with in New York, Miami, Switzerland,
Australia and Mexico that offer professional and affordable services that can
help you achieve your full potential.



FINANCIAL SERVICES


WHAT I CAN DO.





   

 * FINANCIAL STATEMENTS’ GENERATION AND ANALYSIS
   
   
   
   Financial statements are the most basic Financial Information required to
   operate and comply with your local taxation requirements. They include:
   
   
    * Income Statement
    * Balance Sheet
    * Cash-flow statement (not always required)
   
   
   Financial statements are usually a reflection of the financial operations in
   your business. Organized and clear financial statements say a lot about your
   company and the people in it, and for an investor it is one of the main
   indicators of the investability of you company.

   
   

 * CREATION OF FINANCIAL STRATEGIES
   
   
   
   Whether your main goal is to grow as fast as possible, or to acquire as many
   paying clients before your competition beats you to it, your capacity to do
   so is going to be limited, or supported, by your financial strategy.
   
   
   There are many financial strategies available depending on your business
   plan, they mainly focus on where is the money you are going to use in your
   operation and investments going to come from, and what you are going to do
   with the operational income from your business.
   
   
   At first it might seem like a lot of work, having to budget your operations
   and investments, projecting your revenue growth and the many cost-factors
   involved with growing, but the time and money invested in a financial
   strategy might very well be the difference between making it or breaking it.

   
   

 * FINANCIAL MODELING AND PROJECTIONS
   
   
   
   Modeling is an activity that entails financial skills and a profound
   understanding of the nature of the business.
   
   
   There is no such thing as a one-fit-all financial model; each business and
   industry works in different ways and follows different laws.
   
   
   Most investors rely on their own financial models to determine if a company
   is investment-worthy. Even-so, having a clear comprehensive financial model
   of your business can go a long way in facilitating your operations as well as
   shape the investor’s own model to follow your own.
   
   
   Modeling is not about predicting the future, but about setting clear and
   adjustable variables that in their turn will determine the many different
   outcomes of your business.
   
   
   I always recommend to be as detailed as detailed as possible when structuring
   a model as to easily change variables if needed; this will save time when you
   need it most, and will give a very good impression to your counterpart when
   your model is being reviewed.
   
   Being modest and conservative when modeling is the responsible thing to do,
   but always have at least three scenarios of the possible outcomes of the
   company.
   
   
   Sensitivity analysis is a common practice when analyzing an investment
   opportunity, but defining the variables that affect the projections is not
   always easy and, without industry-standards, will usually come down to what
   the project’s model shows as relevant variables, so choose them well and
   support the data used every step of the way.

   
   

 * COMPANY VALUATION AND VALUATION MANAGEMENT
   
   
   
   When subjecting your company to a valuation, either by your own accord or as
   a requirement from an investor, consider that every question made by the
   valuator may impact the final valuation of your company.
   
   
   Having an internal valuation (by discounted cash-flows, industry
   sales-multiple, network size, etc..) is always a good practice. This will
   help you make the same questions the valuator might have ahead of time, and
   figuring out what the right answer to each of them is.
   
   
   Having clear, solid and supported data for the valuation might be the
   difference between a 5x or a 10x valuation, and it depends more in the
   pre-negotiation work than what you really do on the negotiation table.

   
   

 * BUSINESS-PLAN SUPPORT AND STRUCTURING
   
   
   
   Business Plans sound like something you define before you start a business
   and then you have to follow it to the dot. This is not the case in today’s
   ever-changing markets, Business Plans are meant to give direction to your
   team’s actions, but also to adapt to the inputs made by your clients,
   competition and the overall context of your company.
   
   
   Analyzing and re-structuring a business plan while operating is not always
   easy, workshop blindness is a common suffering among founders and operators,
   and an external critical eye can help a lot when redefining a Business Plan.
   
   
   You might think that Mc Donald's is a fast-food business, when the real
   business for Mc Donald’s is real estate. Adapting your operation and business
   plan to the opportunities that rise in the course of your enterprise can help
   you materialize them and turn them into another source of income and growth.

   
   

 * INVESTMENT DECK CONSULTING, PREPARATION AND SUPPORT*
   
   
   
   There are hundreds of books and papers that address investment preparation
   and deck structuring.
   
   
   First thing you have to do is locate your business in an industry, or
   acknowledge and back it as an industry creator.
   
   
   Each industry and each investor require different kinds of decks, be sure to
   reference to investment decks of other companies in your industry that have
   successfully raised capital to have them as reference. (webpages like
   Pitchbook can give you an idea of some of them).
   
   
   Being able to project the spirit of your company to your potential investors
   through a presentation is an art and a science. It is not all about the ROI,
   but you have to be able to make clear to the investor what the upside of
   their investment might be.
   
   
   Being honest and open about the risks of your project is
   
   
   A deck must be able to capture your illusions and the expected future of your
   company while also acknowledging the present reality, and include a call to
   action from whomever is reading it or being presented with it.
   
   
   For this it is best to partner or consult with someone with experience
   generating and presenting investment decks. (My partnership is with a
   consulting company that has successfully presented dozens of companies to
   investors and raised millions of dollars for them)

   
   

 * CAPITAL-RAISING SUPPORT AND EXECUTION*
   
   
   
   From effective networking to reliable follow-up, capital-raising is much more
   than having a good deck and presenting in front of investors. Raising capital
   is selling your company to investors, and as any good salesman, you need to
   plan and strategize to have good continuous results.
   
   
   Using a CRM to manage your prospected investors’ information may not be the
   best solution, there is a lot of information to consider and most times you
   will need to keep the original point of contact through the entire process.
   
   
   Companies are at the top of the luxury-products market, decision makers are
   very different and your approach to each of them should be as personalized as
   possible.
   
   
   A good network and pitch deck will get you in the room, but what you do
   inside and after you leave is what will define the outcome, always have a
   plan and be aware that everything you do is part of what you are selling.
   
   
   When raising money keep in mind that for the investor it is not only the
   company, but the team, that they are investing in, and the face of the
   company to the investors is from whom they will get an idea of what the rest
   of the team is like. Be relatable, professional, knowledgeable and open, you
   want them to like, trust and support you through the entire process.
   
   
   Each market is different, from elevator pitches in NYC to 4-day-weekend
   experiences in Dubai, every investor has different needs and requirements. Be
   sure to have a plan for each of them and be comfortable presenting in 5
   minutes or 4 days, and alluding to what your counterpart cares about when
   possible.
   
   
   ESG standards are a new tool and benchmark to evaluate investments. If your
   company can address any of the ESGs or UN Sustainability goals, make sure you
   can measure them and communicate it efficiently. Most Institutional Investors
   have capital assigned to support ESG-related investments, or have ESG-related
   requirements and criteria when evaluating an investment. Keep this in mind
   and be proud and communicative of the virtues that propel you and your
   business.

   

OPERATIONAL SERVICES


WHAT I CAN DO.





   

 * OPERATIONS’ MAPPING AND AUDITING
   
   
   
   It is very common for companies to operate and earn money for years before
   having to answer a very simple question: What do you do, and how do you do
   it?
   
   
   Mapping a company’s operation entails a deep plunge into the company’s
   day-to-day activities, and an analytical eye that can identify and catalogue
   each process within the company.
   
   
   Once you know what you do, you define the rules and limits of how you do it,
   and then you implement those rules in your organization step by step.
   Depending on the company the implementation can be done with a one-time
   execution when the actions themselves are simple and straight-forward, or a
   fast-iteration process when they are more complex and personalized.
   
   
   Once you have know what you do, you have defined the rules of how you do it,
   and you have communicated this to the organization, then its time to make
   sure all the members comply with these rules and that there is an efficient
   way of proving the process has been respected. This last part is the
   Auditing.

   
   

 * CREATION OF OPERATIONAL STRATEGIES
   
   
   
   Every good organization has their own soul and business mantra. If it is “run
   through brick walls” or “Sangen-shugi” is secondary to actually being
   consistent with it and that it is shared by all in the organization.
   
   
   In early-stage companies almost all Operational Strategies that have been
   successful with similar companies could be effective for your company if
   executed correctly.
   
   
   To correctly execute an Operational Strategy you first have to make sure that
   it matches the kind of leadership the company has and the structure you want
   for the company.
   
   
   Although flat organizational structures are recommended at the beginning of
   all startups, these can change rapidly, and having a supporting strategy that
   matches your growth is paramount if you want to grow efficiently.
   
   
   So, start by choosing a Strategy that feels right to the leadership of the
   company, identify the kind of teams you have and the structure your company
   will need while growing, and modify the Strategy to meet you needs.
   
   
   There are a lot of risks regarding any strategy you choose, having a
   practical manual for decision making for the most likely risks can help the
   organization stay on the same path and avoid blockage.
   
   
   Remember, no strategy is perfect, and when the org-chart starts growing the
   overall strategy then has to be broken down into individual strategies for
   each main area of the company. Pivoting and ramification is natural with
   fast-growing companies, plan for these changes and embrace them with order.

   
   

 * GENERATION OF PROCESSES AND PROCESS-DOCUMENTATION
   
   
   
   It might sound tedious and time-consuming, but when you consider the amount
   of time you take to on-board a new member and to get them to have a
   full-output, process-creation and process-documentation actually save you
   time from the first year of implementation.
   
   
   Depending on the complexity and level of each process you can create rigid or
   flexible processes, but always considering at least 80% of the operations you
   have for each process.
   
   
   If time is an issue, start with the critical processes in your company
   without which you will not be able to survive. Then map out the rest of the
   processes and spread outward from the critical processes as to have the
   supporting processes also clear and designed to be as efficient and reliable
   as possible. Then do the rest of the processes starting with the critical
   ones that you have defined in the Operations’ map.
   
   
   Process documentation is the way you make sure processes are being followed
   and that the operations can be scaled easier.

   
   

 * GENERATION AND IMPLEMENTATION OF COMPANY-WIDE KPIS AND OKRS
   
   
   
   In business lingo it is very common to find references to OKRs and KPIs, but
   knowing which ones to use, or even if you have to use them at all, is hardly
   ever part of the conversation.
   
   
   What are they?
   
   
    * KPIs are the Key Performance Indicators that show you how your team is
      doing in their main work functions. They are usually related to the
      expected capacity of your team, from either historical data or industry
      data, and it lets you know how well your team is working.
    * OKRs are Objectives and Key Results, which have to do with the big
      mountain you want to tackle as a company and are the result of several
      teams working together to achieve such goals. The goals are set depending
      on the vision of the leaders, and the timeframe they set for the company.
   
   
   Which one should you use?
   
   
    * You may not know it, but you probably already have OKRs. Those are the
      objectives you set yourself to accomplish in order to offer the product or
      service your company is intending to create. There are some specifics that
      you may need to add like a breakdown of the different parts, and a
      timeframe for each one of them. So OKRs for sure you need to use.
    * KPIs are tools you use to measure the results of repetitive tasks or
      common activities. Most companies will have them in areas like sales,
      costumer service, operations (when it is repetitive), procurement,
      engineering, etc. If it is something that you can map out in a process
      diagram, it probably should have at least one KPI related to it.
   
   
   How to use them?
   
   
    * I would recommend to get someone that has already set them in your
      industry to work with you. It can be a person or a company, but they
      usually have a set of tools that, if done in-house, could take some months
      (or years) to get to the point in which it is actionable for your team.
    * First define what the 3 or 5 main objectives of the company are, and with
      your team break it down into smaller objectives that are measurable, time
      bound and achievable. Depending on the size and complexity of your
      company, you can have from 10 to 100 OKRs.
    * Have team leaders round up all members of their team and define what their
      activities are and the expected results from those activities are as well.
      Then find a standard to which they want to measure their results (from
      those activities) and an objective to pursue and then start registering
      and measuring.
    * Make it visible for all members of the company, either on their
      work-dashboards or on a whiteboard in the meeting room, but it is
      important for your team to know where they are standing and where the
      company is standing.
   
   

   
   

 * OPERATIONAL-COSTS ANALYSIS AND RECOMMENDATIONS
   
   
   
   It may seem unreal but a lot of new companies do not know how much it costs
   for them to run, and even less so if it is too much or too little.
   
   
   An Operational-costs analysis is a run through all the activities and
   resources involved in your operations that costs you something (time, money,
   space, etc) and then translating that into a cost matrix and eventually into
   a cost per unit. This can be either a time-related unit, or a product/service
   related unit.
   
   
   Having a correct analysis performed can help you identify high-cost
   activities or resources that can then be replaced with more efficient ones.
   They can also give you an idea of which products or services are profitable
   and which are not.

   

Sustainability and Impact


ESG





   

 * ESG, SUSTAINABILITY AND IMPACT
   
   
   
   A little secret, the hardest and most expensive part for big corporations is
   to put them in their DNA, the easiest part for your Start-up is to put them
   in your DNA.
   
   
   There is a lot of information out there about ESGs, sustainability and
   Impact, but there are three main things you have to consider while building
   up your company or scaling that can almost never be done afterwards:
   
   
    * Make sure your product or service serves a purpose and has a positive
      impact.
    * Find a way in which the critical process to produce and deliver your
      product or service is sustainable in time and with scale.
    * Communicate constantly what you and your company stand for, and hire
      accordantly.
   
   
   When your foundations are solid and consider the environment, the people
   (inside and outside your company) and the sustainability of your processes
   and materials, you are not only doing good to the world, but you are doing
   good to your company.
   
   
   Why comply with ESGs, Sustainability and Impact?
   
   
    * There is no company that can exist without a planet, people and purpose.
    * It makes it easier for you to raise capital as it is becoming a critical
      benchmark for most investors.
    * If you want your company to grow, you are going to have an impact whether
      you want it or not. It is up to you and your ideals to define what kind of
      impact you want to have.
    * Good people want to work with good companies. If you want to attract
      talent, and retain it, this is a very good way to do so without having to
      offer crazy salaries.
   
   
   What to consider
   
   
    * Make it simple and start with 3 to 5 main objectives in this realm. Try
      and use the areas in which your product or service is naturally involved
      with and see how you can make a positive impact there.
    * Find the common measuring stick for each of the objectives you choose,
      find the average of your industry for that variable and set an objective
      for your company. Then measure as often as you can and at least every
      quarter look at where you are standing and make the necessary adjustments
      to hit your marks.
    * Communicate both, the objectives and your standings, with all your
      stakeholders (employees, investors, providers, clients, associations, etc)
      and make everyone accountable starting with yourself. When things are
      going well you will grow the appreciation for your company, when things
      are not, more often than not, you will find people with ideas on how to
      make it better.

   

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