About
About Mika
Mika Kasumov is a seasoned financial strategist and the
founder of Abacus & Pencil, specializing in guiding Series B &
C startups through transformative change. With a proven track
record of creating over $2B in equity value and successfully
leading five rounds of financing, Mika brings a unique blend
of expertise to the table.
Mika’s journey includes scaling company’s Annual Recurring
Revenue (ARR) from $25M to $200M. This path has been marked by
impactful leadership and innovative financial strategies.
Mika’s experience encompasses (re)building multiple executive,
finance, and go-to-market teams, crafting the architecture for
sustainable, scalable growth.
Mika believes in the power of financial acumen combined with
strategic foresight to supercharge a company’s trajectory. The
approach is not just about numbers; it’s about aligning
financial strategy with business goals to create a robust
pathway for growth and scalability.
At Abacus & Pencil, Mika focuses on aligning Board and CEO
visions with operational priorities and transforming finance
teams from mere cost centers to pivotal growth drivers. With
experience as a VP of Finance & Sales, Mika effectively
bridges gaps between financial planning and go-to-market
execution, turning challenges into opportunities.
About Abacus & Pencil
Abacus & Pencil is a new type of strategic advisory offering
for scales-ups from $20 to $200M in revenue. We partner with
clients who have established initial product-market fit and
are looking to update their operating...
model as they scale 10x. We are focused on cutting through
the noise and unblocking the complexity that slows down
growth.
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Show Notes
Show Notes
Our guest today is no stranger to the complexities and
challenges of the startup world. He is a master of navigating
transformative change, especially when it comes to scaling
startups and optimizing the intricacies of business. He's an
entrepreneur, a strategist, a financial expert, and even a
go-to-market leader.
Mika Kasumov is the dynamic founder at Abacus & Pencil
Consulting, where he's made it his mission to guide Series B &
C startups through the intricate mazes of business
transformation as a fractional Chief Performance Officer. He's
been the cornerstone of various consulting engagements with
emerging giants like Mux, Rallyware, Trusted Health, and
Sparks Rowing.
His seasoned journey has also seen him as the Vice President
of BizOps & Strategic Finance at the renowned...
MasterClass, the Chief of Staff to the CEO of Pantheon
Platform, and the strategic force behind businesses like
Upwork, Pandora, eBay, and Sears Holdings Corporation.
But Mika isn't all business. He values growth not just in
the boardroom but in life. Whether it's refining financial
strategies, mentoring fellow leaders, diving into the
nuances of the French language, or exploring the world of
fiction, he truly embodies the spirit of continuous learning
and growth. Ladies and gentlemen, a master of transformative
change and a passionate learner at heart, please extend a
warm welcome to Mika.
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Quotes
Quotes
“I really approach the finance function as a driver for growth
as opposed to an accounting-oriented cost center.”
“Don't let hubris around your evaluation number get in the way
of building a long-term company.”
“Early on in my career, remote work would have actually
hindered me.”
“I think that finance can be a competitive advantage. The way
successful companies differentiate themselves is when they use
the function to be a bridge between departments, to be the
connective tissue between what is the investor narrative, how
are we pitching, and what are you actually delivering to your
customer, how are you measuring the customer outcomes, right?
And there's a ton of things in between, like you have all the
different teams whose operating priorities need to stack up,
need to align, for you to have both a good employee, a
customer, and an investor outcome. And I just simply can't
think of any other function that can deliver that outside of
finance.
“It's about having this parallel track of, here are the things
I'd like to do when I have the opportunity to, here are the
things I can do today, and here's how I'm gonna create an
opportunity for myself to act on the rest of it in 18 months
or 12 months or whenever the opportunity arises.”
“The CFO's role is to respectfully challenge, but also support
the vision. And there's a delicate balance to play there
between saying no to everything, and uncovering and front
running risks so that the rest of the company doesn't have to
worry about.”
“Strategic finance is fundamentally business partnering. And
you have to go meet the rest of the business where it's at. If
you have a rev ops team, you partner with your rev ops team.
If you don't, you go and build those capabilities within a
strategic finance org. And in the best cases, strategic
finance is setting the operating case…
…ultimately, the idea (strategic finance) is that you're
filling the void between departments and you're doing that by
being a good partner for each one of them.”
“As a founder, you need to be concurrently data-driven, like
searching for your product-market fit, and have the ability to
ignore 90% of the data points out there. And that creates
cognitive dissonance, right? The idea is that it's really hard
for us as humans to hold to contradictory beliefs in our
heads. That's a huge emotional toll, that's a huge mental
toll.”
“Technology helps wherever you have a recurring process that
just needs to run correctly 99% of the time.”
“It's (technology) not so much about saving time or saving
costs of replacing humans with software, it's about replacing
human error with software predictability.”
“The best CFOs I've seen often bring in a team member into
that (1 on 1 with Founder / CEO). Maybe...
it's a different person every time, but they know that if
founders see the strength of the talent they have on their
team, he actually builds credit. They give opportunities for
their team to grow.”
“If you have an opinion, if the data says one thing, go out
and state it. Don't try to be artificially balanced and play
both sides. And if you're wrong, admit it that you're wrong.
Be open to feedback, of course.”
“If you're going out to pitch today, my view is that you
wanna go out with a simple deck that doesn't necessarily try
to answer every possible question. Every investor is gonna
have a different set of questions they wanna look for in
diligence. Get to the market first, get to them first, put
the simple story in front of them and see if they bite. If
they wanna have a second meeting, they will come back to you
with a whole bunch of extra questions. But the point is that
you'll be able to answer them in context.”
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Lightening Round
Lightening Round
Sweet or Savory
Savory 
Books or Podcasts
Books 
Thinker or Doer
Thinker 
LinkedIn or Twitter
LinkedIn 
Scotch or Whiskey
Whiskey 
Introvert or Extrovert
Introvert 
Mountains or Beaches
Beaches 
Growth or Profitability
Growth 
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One hidden talent
Connecting the dots
Ideal place to retire
Small village in south of France
#1 items on your bucket list
Travel to Antarctica
What can make you 10x more productive?
Sleep
