The SaaS CFO | The #1 source for SaaS finance education. Video lessons, content, templates, and communities to accelerate your SaaS and career.

WHAT I DO:  I help SaaS companies via fractional SaaS CFO services, coaching, and courses in SaaS metrics and finance.  I help companies achieve financial improvement and transparency via a SaaS finance framework that links operations to finance.

WHO I HELP:  I help SaaS founders, finance/accounting, and investors.

WHY IT WORKS:  Translating the operational story into consumable numbers is the key to driving corporate performance and understanding the economics of SaaS businesses.

WHAT MAKES ME DIFFERENT: From debits and credits to financial forecasting to M&A, my experience has not just been silo’ed in the accounting or finance track, but both sides of the desk.  My operations background at several airlines has improved my ability to translate operational performance into improved financial understanding and foresight. My on-the-job experience as a SaaS CFO has allowed me to help thousands of SaaS founders and finance teams.

Ben Murray

I bring a nearly 360-degree view to enterprise software having worked for over three decades in numerous capacities including CEO, CMO, product SVP/GM, competitive analyst, technical staff, interim executive, independent director, angel investor, advisor, and sometimes just friend-of-the-company.

I write about enterprise software at Kellblog.com.  My favorite topics include strategy, sales, marketing, metrics, board relations, financing, and planning.  I talk about enterprise software on The Metrics Brothers, a weekly podcast produced jointly with my metrics brother, Ray Rike.

See the FAQ on Kellblog for more information about who I work with, how I work with them, and how I use social media. 

Dave Kellogg

Well, I finished it. 7644 words (16 single-spaced pages). 166 links, all to high quality and/or fun sources. 30 end notes.  65 hours of writing, not including all the time I spent collecting notes and links over the past six months.

References to John Mayer, PE guy, Charlie Munger, David Ogilvy, the QAnon shaman, Joe Rogan, Chris Hayes, Gergely Orosoz, Keith Payne, Geoffrey Hinton, Andrew Carnegie, John Steinbeck, Wernher von Braun, and Mr. Valentine (that's Billy Ray, not Don).

The Kellblog Predictions for 2026 are out.  (Link in the comments.)

I started doing this 12 years ago mostly for fun. But as I got more sophisticated, I'd start earlier and earlier in the year. Dumping notes and ideas into a file.  Dropping links into that file. Sometimes the file got so big that I'd be afraid to open it. (This year it was about 30 pages before I started cutting it down.)

But that's my creative process. And there are a few benefits to it:

1. I never start with a blank page.
2. I don't get suckered by hot topics du jour. (Though context graphs may have broken that rule this year because they hit late.)
3. It allows me to winnow down to pick only the best topics
4. It then forces me to learn a lot about them. I've got links to books, articles, conversation threads, slide presentations, in there. It's hours and hours of reading and learning.

Ultimately, I do the blog for two reasons:

1. To share what I've learned -- usually, the hard way -- with the next generation of founders and executives.

2. To keep learning myself. There's no forcing function like writing to make you dive into a topic. (So don't let ChatGPT do it for you!  Writing is thinking, as the expression goes.)

I hope you take some time and read the post.  Wishing everyone a happy, healthy, above-plan, and low-churn 2026.

EIR at Balderton Capital, Independent Consultant, Author of Kellblog, and Co-host of The Metrics Brothers

Coming soon.  My 2026 annual predictions post.  

- 10 reviews of 2025 predictions
- 10 all-new predictions for 2026
- 7664 words, equal to sixteen single-spaced pages
- 166 hyperlinks, all to great sources (each one I had to read!)
- 30 endnotes
- 3869 minutes of editing in the file (65 hours)

I think I'll have it out tomorrow.  Watch this space!

As an old database guy, I can't but share this wonderful post I found -- one in a series as it turns out -- that recaps databases in 2025 by Andy Pavlo at CMU.

Open article: Databases in 2025: A Year in Review by cs.cmu.edu

Do 95% of AI projects fail?

Didn't MIT say that in a recent paper?  But was that an academic research paper published in a peer-reviewed journal, or was more of a vendor-esque white paper that argues for a point of view around networked agents and decentralized AI?

What was this MIT report anyway?  A scholarly work or the world's best piece of content marketing?

My metrics brother Ray Rike dig into this in this week's episode of The Metrics Brothers.

Open article: The Metrics Brothers (fka SaaS Talk) by podcasts.apple.com

Here I was thinking that auditors were forward-deployed accountants but Mike Whitmire has proven me wrong.

https://lnkd.in/gPxDU564

Co-founder & CEO at FloQast | The Accounting Transformation Platform

The accounting profession is evolving. Fast.

And at FloQast so are we.

We just created a new role: Forward Deployed Accountant — and yes, you read that right.

This isn't your traditional accounting position. It's what happens when deep accounting expertise meets cutting-edge AI deployment and enterprise transformation work.

Our FDAs:
- Combine CPA-level accounting knowledge with technical capabilities that go beyond what's expected of most accountants (SQL queries, Python scripts, API integrations)
- Help build and deploy AI agents that automate complex accounting processes
- Troubleshoot technical challenges across enterprise systems
- Work directly with CFOs and Controllers to drive measurable ROI through automation

This is the future of accounting I keep talking about.

Not accountants being replaced by AI.
Accountants building AI. Deploying it. Scaling it across teams.

FDAs aren't software engineers learning accounting on the fly. They're accountants embracing the technical side of transformation.

Strategic. Technical. Transformation-focused.

That's where we're headed.

#AccountingTransformation #FutureOfAccounting #FloQast

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Performance Score.css-goub6s{font-size:var(--chakra-fontSizes-md);font-weight:500;color:var(--chakra-colors-gray-600);display:block;margin-top:var(--chakra-space-1);}Dave Kellogg's LinkedIn Performance

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