Over the years I have come to believe that in the early days of a startup, finance and analytics are better together.
I learned this lesson first hand at Intercom. My background before that was purely finance. FP&A at IBM, then FP&A again at a 150 person startup. When I joined Intercom, I was asked to take on analytics as well. At the time I made the joke that numbers are numbers, so why not.
But it was not an accident. I had already seen how often the work of finance and analytics overlapped. Both teams pulling the same data. Both trying to build models that explained what was happening in the business. Both wasting time duplicating efforts.
That overlap becomes obvious once you strip finance back to its core in the early days. Early finance is not payroll. It is not accounts receivable. It is not even planning and forecasting.
Early finance is organizing and defining metrics. It is cleaning up messy data. It is building scrappy first models for things like marketing attribution or customer lifetime value. It is creating a culture of using numbers to understand what is going on.
That description should sound familiar. Because it is exactly what analytics does in the early days.
The connection goes further. Forecasting and planning, which are among the most important jobs of finance, are only as useful as the analysis underneath them. You cannot build a real plan until you have taken the business apart and understood how it works. Flip the statement around and it is just as true. If you deeply understand how the business works, the plan often writes itself.
This is why I think of great finance teams as always being built on a foundation of great analysis.
On the flip side, many of the more sophisticated things people think of as analytics are not useful early on. Unless your product is built around data science, you do not need machine learning models in year one. You do not need perfect marketing attribution. You do not need the most elaborate lifetime value model. In fact, trying to build these things too early often slows you down. At that stage you want speed and direction. Correlation over causation. Scrappy over sophisticated.
The real job of finance and analytics in the early days is the same. Create insights. Build understanding. Help the company grow by giving everyone a clearer picture of what is actually happening.
This is why I believe that when you bring finance and analytics together in the beginning, you get something more powerful than either alone.
A framework for the first operator
If you are the first finance or analytics hire, here is what this looks like in practice:
1. Define the core metrics
Start with ARR, churn, retention, payback period, CAC. Write down clear definitions. Socialize them until everyone uses the same language.
2. Clean and centralize data
Do not aim for a perfect warehouse. Do aim for a reliable set of source tables that you can trust. Early credibility is built on trust in the numbers.
3. Build scrappy first models
Use spreadsheets and simple SQL. Do not worry about causality or statistical purity. A good directional LTV model or rough marketing attribution beats nothing every time.
4. Establish a cadence of sharing insights
Weekly or monthly reports. A lightweight dashboard. Even a daily email. The key is consistency. Build the muscle across the company that decisions are grounded in data.
5. Layer in planning once the basics are in place
With metrics, data, and models in place, you can move into forecasting and scenario planning. At this point you will be building on solid ground rather than guessing.
Looking back, I am glad Intercom forced me to wear both hats. At the time it felt like a stretch. Finance was my comfort zone. Analytics felt like a different discipline. But the truth is that the two were always connected.
That experience changed the way I think about the first operator role. You are not just keeping score. You are not just reporting numbers. You are creating the lens through which the company sees itself. And that lens is built by combining finance and analytics into one view of the business.
So if you find yourself as the first operator at a startup, do not get hung up on whether your title says finance or analytics. The job is both. The real mandate is to help the company understand itself so it can make better decisions and grow.