Aarish Shah is Founder of EmergeONE a Fractional CFO firm for venture backed UK tech startups and scaleups (from Seed to Series B). He has spent close to two decades operating as a CEO or CFO, and now specializes in helping startups understand and act powerfully on their numbers.  In this episode, Aarish shares his insights on financial planning and analysis (FP&A) in startups and the fundamental lessons he has learned in his career.  His “worst budget ever” when one of his factories burnt down in Papua New Guinea Who he would most like to meet His Nothing Ventured podcast and key lessons talking to players in the venture ecosystem Why he likes the constant “challenges” of Series B startups over other stage companies The difference between "building" the playbook and "running" the playbook in startups How to consider your finance tech stack scales pre-seed to Exit  How FP&A should consider their tech stack Why you need to spending your money at pre-seed  Investing in early stage businesses in the UK How do we go about creating a budget and forecast for a startup? Key metrics I use to analyze startups  How startups can cope with the drying up of cheap capital How to get your CFO to say yes  Favorite Excel function How AI understanding is the one skill every FP&A practitioner needs  Episode links: Nothing Ventured Podcast EmergeOne Fractional CFOs [email protected] (to contact Aarish) FP&A Today is brought to you by Datarails,the AI-powered financial planning and analysis platform.  Keep your own Excel financial models and spreadsheets and benefit from AI for data consolidation, reporting and planning. Follow Aarish on LinkedIn YouTube video of the episode Follow Paul Barnhurst on LinkedIn  Follow Datarails on LinkedIn