Tommy Wu

Signs You Need a CFO

Pricing based on vibes, not data

You're leaving millions on the table because you haven't modeled price elasticity, segmentation, or value metrics. Your competitors are A/B testing their way to 2x higher ARPU while you're guessing.

Building tomorrow with yesterday's tools

While you're manually pulling reports from five different systems, your competition has AI agents automating insights. They make decisions in minutes; you take days to even find the data.

Team lacks financial literacy

Product doesn't understand margins and Sales doesn't get unit economics. Data lives in silos across teams, leaving everyone flying blind and making expensive mistakes.

Your unit economics are a black box

You know your burn rate but not your LTV:CAC by channel, cohort, or segment. You're spraying money across GTM channels without knowing what actually drives profitable growth.

Your financial model is fiction

It's a static spreadsheet that's wrong the day after you make it. Close takes 20 days, revenue recognition is duct-taped together, and every diligence call feels like an interrogation because you not confident in your numbers.

Working capital is tied up in inefficiencies

Receivables and vendor terms are draining your resources unchecked, leading to working capital shortages and missed investment opportunities. Cash you need today is stuck in 90-day payment cycles.

Choose a CFO

Choose the finance archetype that best fits your startup's journey. Each comes with their own... unique approach to growth.

The Scorekeeper

Ex-accountant whose models look like Jackson Pollock paintings

They excel at telling you what happened last quarter, not what's possible next quarter
Their "dynamic" model requires manually updating 2,847 cells each month
Still pricing SaaS per seat while your AI burns through tokens like a forest fire

The One-Trick Pony

VP of Finance doing exactly what they did at their last B2B SaaS

Has one playbook because he's seen one movie.
Still using the same financial model template from 2019
Still pitching the "Rule of 40" like it's breaking news from TechCrunch

The PE Playbook Parrot

Vista Equity's preferred executioner CFO

Thinks every business should have exactly 40% gross margins
Only knows three moves: cut costs, raise prices, fire people
Favorite Excel formula: =IF(COST>$0,"NO","Still probably no")

The Hybrid

Builder-CFO who is fluent in finance and AI

Founder hustle like you; backed by OpenAI and top VCs
Tackled finance at three levels: early, growth, late-stage
AI-native toolkit: Automates, optimizes, accelerates everything forward

Accelerating Companies Through AI and Automation

I’m a full-stack builder who collapses the talent stack. I focus on building scalable systems rather than simply shipping tasks. If it can be automated, I will find a way.

Finance

Been on both sides of the table deploying billions and raising millions.

Automated M&A: 70 Buyers, 1 Successful Exit

Orchestrated AI-driven M&A process analyzing 500+ targets, engaged 70 strategic/PE buyers, with a successful exit to a PE backed acquirer. Think Deep Research agents at a fraction of the cost with much better tools.

Turned Negative -20% Margins to 90% Profit Machine

Architected a usage-based pricing model, optimized LLM costs by 95%, and implemented real-time margin tracking — achieving 90% gross margins.

Real-Time Intelligence for Sales & Finance

Built dynamic models ingesting live data from disconnected systems (HRIS, customer telemetry, CRMs) that both predict cash 60 days out AND show sales reps deal profitability in real-time. Result: Zero underwater deals and no financial surprises.

Automated M&A: 70 Buyers, 1 Successful Exit

Turned Negative -20% Margins to 90% Profit Machine

Architected a usage-based pricing model, optimized LLM costs by 95%, and implemented real-time margin tracking — achieving 90% gross margins.

Real-Time Intelligence for Sales & Finance

GTM

Built growth enginees for organic, paid, and sales-led organizations.

Cracked the CAC Code: 1-Month Payback

Built an AI-powered growth engine that A/B tested content, predicted churn, and personalized user experiences. Result: 3x LTV/CAC ratio and CAC payback dropped from 12 months to 1 month, unlocking our ability to acquire users.

Turned Ghost Visitors into Pipeline

Deployed identity graph matching visitors to companies, behavioral scoring algorithm, personalized outreach automation—converting 5x more than cold outbound at 1/10th the cost.

Creator Network Effects at Scale

Needed 50,000 creators but had no budget. Built end-to-end automation: scraped competitors → enriched 50K creators → personalized outreach → automated onboarding. Bonus: Their content became 10,000 SEO-optimized pages on our marketing site.

Cracked the CAC Code: 1-Month Payback

Turned Ghost Visitors into Pipeline

Deployed identity graph matching visitors to companies, behavioral scoring algorithm, personalized outreach automation—converting 5x more than cold outbound at 1/10th the cost.

Creator Network Effects at Scale

Product

Architected AI systems from enterprise to consumer, across all modalities.

The Deepfake Defense System: From 10% to +85% Margins

Transformed single-vendor celebrity NIL protection business model into an AI orchestration system, increasing margins from 10% to 85% while cutting prices 75% — enabling mid-market expansion.

Built Netflix for Comics: Marvel to Manga

Built a digital marketplace for collectible comics powered by the largest publishers in the world (Marvel, DC, Kodansha, Dark Horse, etc).

Personalization Engine: $5 → $80 ARPPU

Created AI that puts kids inside classic stories. Increased ARPPU from $5 to $80 using game mechanics, micro-transactions, tipping, subscriptions, limited-time sales, quests, and cross-selling.

The Deepfake Defense System: From 10% to +85% Margins

Transformed single-vendor celebrity NIL protection business model into an AI orchestration system, increasing margins from 10% to 85% while cutting prices 75% — enabling mid-market expansion.

Built Netflix for Comics: Marvel to Manga

Built a digital marketplace for collectible comics powered by the largest publishers in the world (Marvel, DC, Kodansha, Dark Horse, etc).

Personalization Engine: $5 → $80 ARPPU

Created AI that puts kids inside classic stories. Increased ARPPU from $5 to $80 using game mechanics, micro-transactions, tipping, subscriptions, limited-time sales, quests, and cross-selling.

Operations

Scaled data-labeling, QA, and content moderation pipelines for the most high-profile clients.

Human-in-the-Loop at Scale: 24/7 AI Training

Designed distributed labeling system across global talent pools, automated quality checks, created specialized tooling, automated prompt evals — improved accuracy from 15% to 90%.

Automated 1M+ Asset Operations with 1 Manager

Built end-to-end content pipeline: creator assignment, version control, automated QA, payment processing—achieving 99.9% SLA with 95% cost reduction.

Industry Knowledge Graph: Every Comic Mapped

Created comprehensive market intelligence platform tracking 250K series, pricing trends, release patterns—enabling data-driven inventory and pricing decisions.

Human-in-the-Loop at Scale: 24/7 AI Training

Designed distributed labeling system across global talent pools, automated quality checks, created specialized tooling, automated prompt evals — improved accuracy from 15% to 90%.

Automated 1M+ Asset Operations with 1 Manager

Built end-to-end content pipeline: creator assignment, version control, automated QA, payment processing—achieving 99.9% SLA with 95% cost reduction.

Industry Knowledge Graph: Every Comic Mapped

Created comprehensive market intelligence platform tracking 250K series, pricing trends, release patterns—enabling data-driven inventory and pricing decisions.

Off the Beaten Path

Having worked across multiple disciplines, I bring contrarian thinking to traditional challenges.

Fractional & Interim CFO

FounderCFO

2024 – Current

San Francisco

Echo AI · CFO

Generative AI customer intelligence company that turned conversations into unique insights. Series B company funded by $35 million from Kleiner/Insight Partners/Quiet Capital.

Exits: Ran successful M&A process engaging 15 banks and 127 strategic/PE buyers, securing successful exit to Calabrio, a market leader in CSM.
Margins: Transformed unit economics from -20% to 90% gross margins via usage-based pricing migration, 95% LLM cost reduction, and improved tracking.
Pricing: Ran deal desk, built forecasting tools for sales/success teams, and managed quote-to-cash.
FP&A: Built dynamic forecasting system connecting Salesforce/Snowflake/QuickBooks for real-time margin visibility and monthly variance analysis in minutes.
Reporting: Prepared quarterly board packages, deal memorandums, data rooms, annual financials, ASC 606 revenue recognition, Section 382 studies, and transition from QuickBooks into NetSuite.
Systems Architecture: Evaluated and re-architected tool stack across all finance/GTM/product/ops (47 → 28 tools, 30% savings).

Surreal AI · COO & Acting CFO

AI-powered NIL protection for celebrities (LeBron, Kardashians, Harry Styles, Jay-Z, Jennifer Aniston, Trevor Noah). $4M from OpenAI/Quiet Capital.

Business Model: Redesigned entire P&L from 10% to 80% margins by transitioning from a single vendor to an AI-orchestration platform.
Cost Structure: Cut inference costs 90% through prompt evals/optimization, custom classifier development, and rule-based analysis engine. Improved accuracy from 40% to 95%.
Pricing: Created pricing tiers allowing GTM team to sell into both enterprise and mid-market ICPs.
Operations: Built 24/7 worldwide data labeling operation to train classifier/judgment models and serve as the human-in-the-loop for final content moderation decisions.

Neon Ichiban · COO

Digital resellable comic marketplace (Marvel, DC, KoDansha, Dark Horse, Vault). Led by founders of ComiXology (acq Amazon) with $7M from GFR Fund and 1AM Gaming.

Pipelines: Architected the workflows to onboard and QA hundreds of thousands of comics from the largest IP holders in the world, each with their own bespoke storage systems.
Workflows: Setup systems for worldwide collaboration (Linear, Notion, Slack, Supabase, Branch, PostHog, Figma, Customer.io, n8n) as well as the AI to allow for weekly reporting, summarization, and gap analysis.
Product: Designed the web/mobile consumer mobile app that allowed users to buy, sign, and resell limited edition comics, as well as the merchandising systems to effectively sell the right content to the right user at the right time. Vibe coded the earliest consumer experience & CMS design.

Founder & CEO

Tales

2019 – 2023

San Francisco

AI storytelling platform to make books, comics, and games. Raised $3M from Founder Collective, John Riccitiello (Unity), Scott Belsky (Adobe), Chris Carvalho (Roblox), Jake Paul (fighter), Patrick Lee (Rotten Tomatoes).

Revenue Model: Increased ARPPU from $5 to $80 through systematic A/B testing of pricing and monetization mechanics, resulting in $1.5 CAC with a 1-month payback.
Growth Economics: Drove waitlist of over 50,000 creators using data extraction, marketing automation, and personalized outreach at scale.
Fundraising: Pitched and closed seed/Series A from top consumer investors during COVID market using cold emails.
Financial Discipline: Produced content at 4% of market cost through workflows to curate over 100,000 chapters, produce millions of art assets, and manage hundreds of contractors.

Co-Founder & CEO

FableLabs

2014 – 2018

San Francisco

Game development platform. Raised $5MM from Foxconn to create narrative-driven games on the Unity platform. Think Supercell meets Netflix.

Co-Founder & CEO

Tribal Crossing

2009 – 2013

San Francisco

Match.com meets social gaming. 10M users on $50,000 marketing budget.

Private Equity Investor

Elevation Partners

2006 – 2008

Menlo Park

Largest debut fund with $2B in capital – Partners included: Bono (U2), Roger McNamee (Founder of Silver Lake Partners), Fred Anderson (CFO of Apple), John Riccitiello (CEO of Unity), and Bret Pearlman (MD at Blackstone).

Deployed $100-400M checks into media and technology companies including BioWare/Pandemic ($1B exit to EA).
Performed financial modeling, due diligence, product strategy, and investment valuation.

Investment Banking Analyst

Morgan Stanley

2004 – 2006

San Francisco

Modeled LBOs and M&A in Financial Sponsors Group for TPG, KKR, Apollo.
Structured complex JVs, REIT transactions, and waterfall structures for MSREF ($57Bn in AUM).

Industrial Engineering & Operations Research

UC Berkeley

1999 – 2003

Berkeley

Graduated Magna Cum Laude
Minor in Business

Partnership Criteria

This is what I look for when considering a new collaboration.

Ready to Build Together?

I focus on getting early stage founders to meaningful milestones. Open to interim or fractional CFO roles.

Tommy Wu's expertise connecting founders, finance, and scale for early-stage gen AI startups through revops, gtm, and operations

Email me

Happy to point you in the right direction.

tommy@foundercfo.com Send email

Send email

Schedule a call

30-minute strategy session.

calendly.com/foundercfo Book call

Book call

Accelerating Companies Through AI and Automation

I’m a full-stack builder who collapses the talent stack. I focus on building scalable systems rather than simply shipping tasks. If it can be automated, I will find a way.

Finance

Been on both sides of the table deploying billions and raising millions.

Automated M&A: 70 Buyers, 1 Successful Exit

Turned Negative -20% Margins to 90% Profit Machine

Architected a usage-based pricing model, optimized LLM costs by 95%, and implemented real-time margin tracking — achieving 90% gross margins.

Real-Time Intelligence for Sales & Finance

Automated M&A: 70 Buyers, 1 Successful Exit

Turned Negative -20% Margins to 90% Profit Machine

Architected a usage-based pricing model, optimized LLM costs by 95%, and implemented real-time margin tracking — achieving 90% gross margins.

Real-Time Intelligence for Sales & Finance

GTM

Built growth enginees for organic, paid, and sales-led organizations.

Cracked the CAC Code: 1-Month Payback

Turned Ghost Visitors into Pipeline

Deployed identity graph matching visitors to companies, behavioral scoring algorithm, personalized outreach automation—converting 5x more than cold outbound at 1/10th the cost.

Creator Network Effects at Scale

Cracked the CAC Code: 1-Month Payback

Turned Ghost Visitors into Pipeline

Deployed identity graph matching visitors to companies, behavioral scoring algorithm, personalized outreach automation—converting 5x more than cold outbound at 1/10th the cost.

Creator Network Effects at Scale

Product

Architected AI systems from enterprise to consumer, across all modalities.

The Deepfake Defense System: From 10% to +85% Margins

Transformed single-vendor celebrity NIL protection business model into an AI orchestration system, increasing margins from 10% to 85% while cutting prices 75% — enabling mid-market expansion.

Built Netflix for Comics: Marvel to Manga

Built a digital marketplace for collectible comics powered by the largest publishers in the world (Marvel, DC, Kodansha, Dark Horse, etc).

Personalization Engine: $5 → $80 ARPPU

Created AI that puts kids inside classic stories. Increased ARPPU from $5 to $80 using game mechanics, micro-transactions, tipping, subscriptions, limited-time sales, quests, and cross-selling.

The Deepfake Defense System: From 10% to +85% Margins

Transformed single-vendor celebrity NIL protection business model into an AI orchestration system, increasing margins from 10% to 85% while cutting prices 75% — enabling mid-market expansion.

Built Netflix for Comics: Marvel to Manga

Built a digital marketplace for collectible comics powered by the largest publishers in the world (Marvel, DC, Kodansha, Dark Horse, etc).

Personalization Engine: $5 → $80 ARPPU

Created AI that puts kids inside classic stories. Increased ARPPU from $5 to $80 using game mechanics, micro-transactions, tipping, subscriptions, limited-time sales, quests, and cross-selling.

Operations

Scaled data-labeling, QA, and content moderation pipelines for the most high-profile clients.

Human-in-the-Loop at Scale: 24/7 AI Training

Designed distributed labeling system across global talent pools, automated quality checks, created specialized tooling, automated prompt evals — improved accuracy from 15% to 90%.

Automated 1M+ Asset Operations with 1 Manager

Built end-to-end content pipeline: creator assignment, version control, automated QA, payment processing—achieving 99.9% SLA with 95% cost reduction.

Industry Knowledge Graph: Every Comic Mapped

Created comprehensive market intelligence platform tracking 250K series, pricing trends, release patterns—enabling data-driven inventory and pricing decisions.

Human-in-the-Loop at Scale: 24/7 AI Training

Designed distributed labeling system across global talent pools, automated quality checks, created specialized tooling, automated prompt evals — improved accuracy from 15% to 90%.

Automated 1M+ Asset Operations with 1 Manager

Built end-to-end content pipeline: creator assignment, version control, automated QA, payment processing—achieving 99.9% SLA with 95% cost reduction.

Industry Knowledge Graph: Every Comic Mapped

Created comprehensive market intelligence platform tracking 250K series, pricing trends, release patterns—enabling data-driven inventory and pricing decisions.

Off the Beaten Path

Having worked across multiple disciplines, I bring contrarian thinking to traditional challenges.

Fractional & Interim CFO

FounderCFO

2024 – Current

San Francisco

Echo AI · CFO

Generative AI customer intelligence company that turned conversations into unique insights. Series B company funded by $35 million from Kleiner/Insight Partners/Quiet Capital.

Exits: Ran successful M&A process engaging 15 banks and 127 strategic/PE buyers, securing successful exit to Calabrio, a market leader in CSM.
Margins: Transformed unit economics from -20% to 90% gross margins via usage-based pricing migration, 95% LLM cost reduction, and improved tracking.
Pricing: Ran deal desk, built forecasting tools for sales/success teams, and managed quote-to-cash.
FP&A: Built dynamic forecasting system connecting Salesforce/Snowflake/QuickBooks for real-time margin visibility and monthly variance analysis in minutes.
Reporting: Prepared quarterly board packages, deal memorandums, data rooms, annual financials, ASC 606 revenue recognition, Section 382 studies, and transition from QuickBooks into NetSuite.
Systems Architecture: Evaluated and re-architected tool stack across all finance/GTM/product/ops (47 → 28 tools, 30% savings).

Surreal AI · COO & Acting CFO

AI-powered NIL protection for celebrities (LeBron, Kardashians, Harry Styles, Jay-Z, Jennifer Aniston, Trevor Noah). $4M from OpenAI/Quiet Capital.

Business Model: Redesigned entire P&L from 10% to 80% margins by transitioning from a single vendor to an AI-orchestration platform.
Cost Structure: Cut inference costs 90% through prompt evals/optimization, custom classifier development, and rule-based analysis engine. Improved accuracy from 40% to 95%.
Pricing: Created pricing tiers allowing GTM team to sell into both enterprise and mid-market ICPs.
Operations: Built 24/7 worldwide data labeling operation to train classifier/judgment models and serve as the human-in-the-loop for final content moderation decisions.

Neon Ichiban · COO

Digital resellable comic marketplace (Marvel, DC, KoDansha, Dark Horse, Vault). Led by founders of ComiXology (acq Amazon) with $7M from GFR Fund and 1AM Gaming.

Pipelines: Architected the workflows to onboard and QA hundreds of thousands of comics from the largest IP holders in the world, each with their own bespoke storage systems.
Workflows: Setup systems for worldwide collaboration (Linear, Notion, Slack, Supabase, Branch, PostHog, Figma, Customer.io, n8n) as well as the AI to allow for weekly reporting, summarization, and gap analysis.
Product: Designed the web/mobile consumer mobile app that allowed users to buy, sign, and resell limited edition comics, as well as the merchandising systems to effectively sell the right content to the right user at the right time. Vibe coded the earliest consumer experience & CMS design.

Founder & CEO

Tales

2019 – 2023

San Francisco

Revenue Model: Increased ARPPU from $5 to $80 through systematic A/B testing of pricing and monetization mechanics, resulting in $1.5 CAC with a 1-month payback.
Growth Economics: Drove waitlist of over 50,000 creators using data extraction, marketing automation, and personalized outreach at scale.
Fundraising: Pitched and closed seed/Series A from top consumer investors during COVID market using cold emails.
Financial Discipline: Produced content at 4% of market cost through workflows to curate over 100,000 chapters, produce millions of art assets, and manage hundreds of contractors.

Co-Founder & CEO

FableLabs

2014 – 2018

San Francisco

Game development platform. Raised $5MM from Foxconn to create narrative-driven games on the Unity platform. Think Supercell meets Netflix.

Co-Founder & CEO

Tribal Crossing

2009 – 2013

San Francisco

Match.com meets social gaming. 10M users on $50,000 marketing budget.

Private Equity Investor

Elevation Partners

2006 – 2008

Menlo Park

Deployed $100-400M checks into media and technology companies including BioWare/Pandemic ($1B exit to EA).
Performed financial modeling, due diligence, product strategy, and investment valuation.

Investment Banking Analyst

Morgan Stanley

2004 – 2006

San Francisco

Modeled LBOs and M&A in Financial Sponsors Group for TPG, KKR, Apollo.
Structured complex JVs, REIT transactions, and waterfall structures for MSREF ($57Bn in AUM).

Industrial Engineering & Operations Research

UC Berkeley

1999 – 2003

Berkeley

Graduated Magna Cum Laude
Minor in Business

Tommy Wu

Signs You Need a CFO

Pricing based on vibes, not data

Building tomorrow with yesterday's tools

Team lacks financial literacy

Your unit economics are a black box

Your financial model is fiction

Working capital is tied up in inefficiencies

Choose a CFO

The Scorekeeper

The One-Trick Pony

The PE Playbook Parrot

The Hybrid

From Garage to Boardroom

Accelerating Companies Through AI and Automation

Finance

Automated M&A: 70 Buyers, 1 Successful Exit

Turned Negative -20% Margins to 90% Profit Machine

Real-Time Intelligence for Sales & Finance

Automated M&A: 70 Buyers, 1 Successful Exit

Turned Negative -20% Margins to 90% Profit Machine

Real-Time Intelligence for Sales & Finance

GTM

Cracked the CAC Code: 1-Month Payback

Turned Ghost Visitors into Pipeline

Creator Network Effects at Scale

Cracked the CAC Code: 1-Month Payback

Turned Ghost Visitors into Pipeline

Creator Network Effects at Scale

Product

The Deepfake Defense System: From 10% to +85% Margins

Built Netflix for Comics: Marvel to Manga

Personalization Engine: $5 → $80 ARPPU

The Deepfake Defense System: From 10% to +85% Margins

Built Netflix for Comics: Marvel to Manga

Personalization Engine: $5 → $80 ARPPU

Operations

Human-in-the-Loop at Scale: 24/7 AI Training

Automated 1M+ Asset Operations with 1 Manager

Industry Knowledge Graph: Every Comic Mapped

Human-in-the-Loop at Scale: 24/7 AI Training

Automated 1M+ Asset Operations with 1 Manager

Industry Knowledge Graph: Every Comic Mapped

Off the Beaten Path

Fractional & Interim CFO

Echo AI · CFO

Surreal AI · COO & Acting CFO

Neon Ichiban · COO

Founder & CEO

Co-Founder & CEO

Co-Founder & CEO

Private Equity Investor

Investment Banking Analyst

Industrial Engineering & Operations Research

Partnership Criteria

Ready to Build Together?

Email me

Schedule a call

Choose a CFO

The Scorekeeper

The One-Trick Pony

The PE Playbook Parrot

The Hybrid

From Garage to Boardroom

Accelerating Companies Through AI and Automation

Finance

Automated M&A: 70 Buyers, 1 Successful Exit

Turned Negative -20% Margins to 90% Profit Machine

Real-Time Intelligence for Sales & Finance

Automated M&A: 70 Buyers, 1 Successful Exit

Turned Negative -20% Margins to 90% Profit Machine

Real-Time Intelligence for Sales & Finance

GTM

Cracked the CAC Code: 1-Month Payback

Turned Ghost Visitors into Pipeline

Creator Network Effects at Scale

Cracked the CAC Code: 1-Month Payback

Turned Ghost Visitors into Pipeline

Creator Network Effects at Scale