Two co-founders. One is a Product Manager, the other Chief AI Officer—or the high-potential developer slated to become CEO soon. Behind them: two to three dozen people and growth they want to target.
Almost exclusively devs and designers. A cousin does HR part-time. If she's not around, one of the co-founders steps in—whoever has time. A former PM from a client is now the Sales Manager. The product teams have grown. The meeting list, too.
In parallel, the project list is growing. Client X wants to sign a huge contract soon: an AI platform they actually needed yesterday.
No one can clearly say when which product is "done enough" for a client to accept the invoice. Are all the invoices out for this month? What can be billed to whom this month? How many hours did which employee work on which project, for which client? Somebody needs to assign that quickly.
There is no budget. No forecasts either. No monthly results, no profit projections, no cash flow planning. No finance processes.
A few XLS files are lying around somewhere. Hardly anyone uses them—it's unclear if the numbers are correct or what should be calculated how. There are no specialists. There are no systems.
The PM-CEO still quickly transfers the salaries. Hopefully, payroll caught everything this time. Last month, three new employees were missing. For a brief moment, everyone thought the company couldn't pay salaries anymore.
Afterward, the high-potential Dev-CEO decides whether 2,000 Euros gross is appropriate for a Finance Intern, and whether the position should be filled at all. What the intern is supposed to do, he still needs to figure out. Or the intern will find out for themselves. "There's actually not that much to do in finance here."
That is exactly where the first finance role emerges. Not as an accounting intern.
But as someone who, instead of Excel files, implements a system the CEO can actually read—and that keeps running when the interim leaves.
That is the moment Interim Finance makes sense. Not earlier. Not as a 2k intern.