Marc Arnold, commercial CFO for founder-led consumer brands
Find the money.
Keep it.
Grow it.
Sales are up. Customers love the brand. And the bank balance keeps shrinking. I work alongside founders to find the cash hiding in their business, set the guardrails that protect it, and build a plan to grow without going broke.
Brand Rich, Cash Poor: A Founder’s Guide to Growing Without Going Broke
in finance, from big-business rigour to founder-led brands
growing a founder-led consumer brand as its CFO
the playbook for founders whose sales are up and cash is down
Where the money hides
In almost every growing brand, the cash is sitting in one of five places. Find it there, and the bank balance starts to match the sales.
In the order
What each sale really leaves after every cost of getting it to the customer.
In the funnel
What you pay to win a customer, against what that customer is worth.
On the shelf
Stock bought too early or too deep, and products that don’t earn their place.
In the gap
The months between paying suppliers and getting paid by customers.
In the overheads
The fixed costs that decide where breakeven sits.
Brand Rich, Cash Poor
A practical guide for founders of consumer brands, whether you’re packing boxes yourself or running a £50m business. It follows Josh, a founder with £8,000 in the bank and payroll three weeks away, and answers the twelve questions founders ask most. Every chapter has a 20-second top line, worked examples with real numbers, lessons from inside growing brands, and the questions to ask your own team.
- What does each order really make?
- Why is the bank balance falling when sales are rising?
- How do we get from loss to profit?
- Which numbers actually matter?
- How much should we spend on marketing, and where?
- Which categories and channels next?
- How much stock should we hold?
- Stay self-funded, or raise money?
- What got us here won’t get us there
- Should we raise prices, or sell bigger baskets?
- Should we go to the US?
- Are we ready for private equity?
Are you brand rich, cash poor?
Score each statement honestly. 2 if it’s true and you could prove it, 1 if it’s sort of true, 0 if it isn’t true or you don’t know.
Your answers stay in this page. Nothing is sent anywhere.
Work with me
I’m a commercial CFO, a business partner to the founder rather than the person who files your returns. I sit beside you and ask: where’s the money, and where should it go next?
Fractional CFO
A few days a week or a few days a month. A live forecast we build together, a one-page weekly dashboard, and guardrails so every bet has a limit.
For brands growing fast without a CFO
Interim or permanent CFO
Full-time leadership of finance through a stage of growth: building the team, the plan and the numbers investors and boards will test.
For brands from around £5m to £100m
Where’s the money? session
A focused session on your numbers using the book’s framework. You leave with what each order really makes, where cash is tied up, and a one-page action plan.
For founders who want a clear starting point
About Marc
I wanted to be a musician, and was so successful at it that I ended up in accountancy. I studied history and politics, trained in audit with one of the big accounting firms, and spent years inside large businesses learning what good looks like.
Then I moved into founder-led consumer brands, often where there was no finance function at all. I built finance from scratch, and as CFO helped grow one brand from £10m to £75m.
I work best with brands I believe in, ones that do business the right way and have a positive impact.
Where I help most
Sectors
Let’s find the money
If the book or the test raised questions about your own business, I’d be glad to hear from you.