Success stories
Success stories.
Where I have built finance functions, cut costs, and prepared companies for a sale or a raise.
Bill Fisher · Fractional CFO and Chief AI Officer
The stories Always be ready to exit Be ready to sell Be ready to raise
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Over $3 million in annual cash-flow improvement
A hospitality group with under $20 million in revenue
The problemNo finance department, and accounting spread across several stand-alone systems.
What we didWe hired the team (2.5 people plus me), mapped the real processes, merged the systems into one ERP, and put AI agents on payables, tax, and reporting.
The resultEvery manager could see spending, purchase orders, and acquisitions against budget, line by line, every day, instead of after the month closed. With the team, we questioned every cost and every price, and annual cash flow improved by more than $3 million. The specifics belong to hospitality. The method travels: show people the numbers daily, ask what each line earns, and act on the answers. Where that starts in your business is a different question, and it is what the Requirements Map is for. The department was running a clean close and AI-assisted reporting within the first year.
ResourceX, sold to Tyler Technologies in 2023
A Denver software company (B2B SaaS), an Innosphere portfolio company
The problemA company that needed to be ready for a sale, with financials that were not.
What we didI stepped in as CFO. We put GAAP accounting in place, rebuilt three years of financials through a fast-track internal audit, and built the data room, cap table, and waterfall.
The resultMultiple offers, a cleared financial and legal diligence, and the sale to Tyler Technologies.
Community Funded, sold to GiveCampus in 2023
A software company (B2B SaaS)
I served on the Board of Directors through due diligence with K1, a private equity firm looking to buy the company. GiveCampus then came in with a better offer, and I stayed through the final sale to GiveCampus.
As a board member, I have been astonished by how unprepared some C-suites are when qualified buyers show up. Preparation is what protects the price.
Innosphere Ventures: two funds, about $24 million
Venture capital
As CFO I monitored the funds' due-diligence procedures, analyzed about 20 startups, helped fund a dozen, and set up lending facilities for the funds and their portfolio companies. Lenders and investors dealt with me as the funds' CFO. I personally helped raise about $8 million of Fund II. I remain an investor in both funds.
Roche Constructors: 17 years, about $1 billion in construction
Construction and land development
As CFO I ran finance, accounting, risk, HR, and IT for more than $1 billion in contract work, and helped build an energy company and sell its assets to Chevron.
The rule of thumb
Always be ready to exit.
You never know when an offer you can't refuse will arrive. The companies that say yes quickly are the ones that were ready the day before. A sale is won in diligence. Buyers pay for numbers that hold up under questioning, and they discount, re-trade, or walk when the numbers wobble.
Be ready to sellSell-side readiness, in order, and the buy-side view.
Clean statementsThree years of GAAP financials with consistent policies, revenue recognized properly (ASC 606 for software and subscription businesses), and a quality-of-earnings review you have done on yourself before the buyer's accountants do it to you.
Consistent KPIsThe same definitions every month, reconciled to the ledger. A buyer who finds two versions of annual recurring revenue assumes there are two versions of everything.
A complete data room before you go to marketContracts, customers, employees, IP, tax, litigation, cap table, and waterfall. Built once, maintained monthly, so diligence is reading, not archaeology.
A normalized EBITDA bridgeOwner expenses, one-time items, and run-rate adjustments documented with evidence, not assertions.
One source of truth for every questionA question log, one owner, 24-hour answers. Speed in diligence is credibility.
Advisers in syncYour banker sells the story, your attorney protects you, and your tax adviser structures the deal. I make sure the three work from the same numbers and translate between them and your accounting team. That shortens the process by weeks and removes the re-trades and extra fees that come from surprises.
If you are the buyerWe evaluate the target's numbers the way a buyer's accountant would, model the combined business, and plan the first 100 days of integration before the close. The hardest part is usually the books: folding the target's accounting and ERP into one set. I have done that with several stand-alone systems.
Be ready to raiseWhat a partner checks, and the six-month plan.
Investors back what they can verify, and most first meetings fail on verification, not on the idea. I have read the models and data rooms of about 20 companies from the fund side. Here is what a partner checks.
Does the model hold together?Revenue built from drivers (customers, price, churn, pipeline conversion), not a growth rate typed into a cell. Cash that reconciles to the bank statement.
Do the metrics fit the business?A software company is judged on ARR, net revenue retention, gross margin, and CAC payback. An operating company is judged on gross margin, working capital, and cash conversion.
Is the data room ready?Cap table, three years of statements, contracts, IP, employee agreements, tax filings, and board minutes. A room that is current the day they ask moves the round.
Who answers the hard questions?A founder who has to say "let me check with my bookkeeper" loses the room.
The six-month plan
- 6 months out: diagnose the books, close GAAP gaps, choose the metrics, and track them monthly.
- 5 to 4: build the driver-based model and three scenarios, clean the cap table, and open and fill the data room.
- 3 to 2: a board-ready pack every month, dry-run the investor questions, and model term-sheet economics (dilution, liquidation preference, option pool).
- 1 to 0: first meetings, the data room opens the same day, and a question log has one source of truth.
What I do and do not doI build the model, the metrics, and the room, and I sit in the diligence calls. I do not introduce you to investors as a service, and I do not take success fees, so my advice stays clean. Where I know a fund that fits, I will say so.
If a sale or a raise is on the horizon, the best time to start is before the banker is hired.