"One of the biggest benefits of working with Pilot early is they have a view across hundreds of startups and can say, ‘You’re on track,’ which was very helpful validation.”
An early advisor told Leo and his co-founders that they needed to focus. That meant handing off the finances. “I have a finance background and I’d run an asset management company and thought of myself as good at building models,” says Leo Patching, who was then in charge of payments. “I resisted at first.” But he gave Pilot a shot and realized that having a Pilot CFO freed him to do what he’s even better at—building and selling.
Over time, their Pilot CFO has become an essential contributor who has helped deliver essential wins, starting with helping to secure their first big partner, Equifax. Pilot has been there to help navigate every stage, from preparing for and executing a successful fundraise to budgeting and managing cash flow.
“There were times where we got down to a month’s cash in the bank and a staring contest between me and our lead investor,” says Leo. “Having Pilot as a trusted advisor throughout was crucial.”
The Kompliant team wanted to bootstrap as long as they could, and keep the team “tight and lean,” so the executives did all they could themselves, including the back-office and finance tasks. “We had a fuse burning on when we’d have to involve more help,” says Leo. “By the end of our first product sprint, it was clear we’d reached that point.”
Kompliant hired a fractional dev shop to build the product faster and a Pilot CFO to build out finance and back-office operations. They wanted to lay all the right foundations for scale, and have very senior practitioners involved early to help them prepare for things they didn’t yet know were coming.
When they first met with Danielle, their Pilot CFO, Leo and team blew through the first hour of that meeting, then a second and a third. “I remember looking out our window at the New York skyline. When the meeting started it was light and when it ended it was dark,” recalls Leo. “We were enthralled in the vision. Quite a startup kind of moment.”
Then Leo received the first model from Daneille. “I’ve spent a lot of time financial modeling. I am good at that. Danielle is a certified ninja,” says Leo. “There is something really special that happens when you have a competency in something and you realize someone is much better than you.” Leo felt he could let go somewhat, and partner with Pilot in a different way. He started throwing ideas at her to see what she could create, and focus more on generating those ideas.
At first, Leo resisted Pilot’s use of Google Sheets because he was so used to Excel. But it allowed him and Danielle to collaborate live on the model. “There was something magical seeing that,” he says. “Like art in motion.”
“There was something magical seeing the live collaboration. Like art in motion.”
Kompliant embarked on a series of pitches to potential partners, where they presented the projections and deck that Danielle had put together. In an important meeting with Equifax, they learned right as the call started that they’d misjudged the situation. “Our assumptions were completely wrong and it gutted our cost of sale,” says Leo. “But because Danielle was in our Slack, she jumped into the deck and incorporated the changes live. By the time we got to that slide, it was updated. That was our first partnership agreement we signed.”
The early validation allowed Kompliant to create a product that knit together three Fortune 500 companies. The first product was a user interface over a web hook architecture and APIs that orchestrated transactions between those giants, including Equifax, which the enterprises hadn’t been able to manage on their own. “Looking back, I don’t understand how we got them to agree,” laughs Leo—but Kompliant’s solid financials and presentations played a role.
“Looking back, I don’t understand how we got them to agree.”
Kompliant went on to raise capital and their Pilot CFO helped with price discovery, formulating a master services agreement, and responding to several 180-page RFPs. The CFOs helped them prepare for board meetings, track burn, and optimize pricing—whatever came up.
“I think one of the biggest benefits of working with Pilot early is they have a view across hundreds of startups and can say, ‘You’re on track,’ which was very helpful validation,” says Leo. Further, this partnership saved him and the team from recreating processes and models that already existed. Pilot helped them craft the very business model of the company, and translated that into a financial model with unit economics that could scale.
“Pilot would tell us things and we’d go, ‘Oh, I guess we’ll change this very fundamental component of our go-to-market,” laughs Leo. “It was very unlike any of our other engagements at the time.”
“One of the biggest benefits of working with Pilot early is they have a view across hundreds of startups and can say, ‘You’re on track,’ which was very helpful validation.”
Today Kompliant has 14 enterprise customers and another Pilot CFO, Pat, who’s helping push things forward even faster. “Pat and Danielle share a speed of movement, a bias towards urgency,” says Leo. “I have people on my team who also have that bias, but they aren’t detail-oriented like Pilot. If I really think about it, what Pilot represents is being able to access top talent, quality, and expertise that can level you up, and the cost is commensurate because price is what you pay, value is what you get. You're not looking for cheap, you are looking for the outcome you want, which is professionalism. ”
Leo has reached a point where he trusts the work completely. “I never have any fear of anything Pat delivers to me—the only way it is wrong is if I’ve given him the wrong assumptions.” Pat is now helping Kompliant with building out a pro forma, managing the cap table, and planning out employee stock options—things that free up Leo’s team and add a level of professionalism for their key stakeholders.
“I don’t think anyone who has been involved in Kompliant would have any issue with the finances whatsoever, and that’s remarkable,” says Leo. “Not many startups can say that.”
Kompliant is, as the name suggests, a compliance software which helps large financial institutions manage risk and keep compliant through intelligent automation.
