Founder Operating Review

The rigor of a senior CFO.
Without the hire (yet).

Everything a senior CFO would put in order — your numbers, governance, and key decisions — delivered in 30 days.

Service-led and human-reviewed. Read-only or manually shared documents only — no platform, no integrations.

58%

of founders name fundraising their top concern (Slush Startup Struggle Survey 2025, n=607)

18%

say they could raise easily in today's market — investors expect rigor and capital efficiency (Slush 2025)

53%

of founders report burnout in the past year, citing scaling, fundraising and delivery pressure (Sifted, 2024)

How it works

Three steps. About 30 minutes of your time.

1

Document intake

You share whatever you have — board decks, exports, spreadsheets, contracts. No specific format required.

2

Build & structure

We organise, model, and synthesise the material into the deliverables below.

3

Review & validate

You review every deliverable before it's finalised or shared with anyone else.

The deliverables

One review. Ten working documents.

Every deliverable is reviewed and signed off by a senior CFO before it reaches you.

Financial clarity

FP&A Model

Budget vs. actuals, cash flow, and runway — so you always know how much time and money you have.

Board / Investor Deck

A polished summary of performance, financials, and key decisions — ready to share.

Governance & risk

Governance Overview

Cap table, org chart, and a timeline of recurring dates — tax, VAT, AGM, board meetings.

DD-Readiness Review

Suggested SOPs and internal controls — prepared if due diligence happens tomorrow.

Stakeholder Map

Suppliers and clients — contracts, terms, renewals, key contacts — to spot dependency early.

Risk Register

Red flags across your documents — legal, financial, operational — flagged by severity.

Decisions & follow-through

Founder Brief

Where the business stands, the biggest risks, and the top decisions to make.

Decision Memo

Your most pressing decisions — options, trade-offs, and a clear recommendation.

Action Tracker

Findings turned into actions, owners, and deadlines — follow-through, not paperwork.

Source Library

What we've received, what's missing — DD-readiness tracked over time, not just once.

Is Selo the right fit?

Built for a specific stage of company.

A strong fit if

  • You have real sales traction — paying customers, a pipeline, momentum.
  • Profitability is still a year or two away, so runway, reporting, and investor confidence matter.
  • There's no CFO or COO on the team — finance and admin still live in the founder's head.
  • A board, investors, or lenders expect structured reporting — or a fundraise or due diligence is on the horizon.

Probably not (yet) if

  • You're pre-revenue — keep it lean for now, and come back at first traction.
  • You already have a senior CFO in place — Selo would duplicate their work. A junior finance hire, though, is no blocker: Selo gives them senior backup.
  • You're looking for bookkeeping or accounting — Selo works alongside your accountant, it doesn't replace them.

Where to start

Two ways in.

Most clients start with the diagnostic and upgrade within the month.

Standalone Diagnostic

€950 HT

A focused first pass: where you stand, the biggest red flags, and what a full review would deliver.

Start with a diagnostic

30-Day Pilot

€2,900 HT

The full Founder Operating Review — every deliverable above, delivered in 30 days.

Book the pilot

Selo runs your finance rigor until you hire — and when you do, the final deliverable is a clean handover pack for your incoming CFO.

Why we built Selo

Boards demand CFO rigor long before founders can hire one.

Selo is the product of 15+ years as CFO & COO across listed companies, hyper-growth scale-ups, and pre-revenue startups — and of one recurring observation: boards and investors demand the structure, control, and reporting rigor of a senior CFO long before a company can justify the full-time hire.

Selo closes that gap with its own methodology: 15+ years of board cycles, audits, and fundraises encoded into a state-of-the-art AI workflow, and stress-tested with experienced CFOs and operators. The AI compresses months of work into weeks; the methodology keeps it accurate and reliable; and every deliverable is reviewed and signed off by a senior CFO before it reaches you.

Twenty minutes. No deck required.

Tell us where your company stands — we'll tell you honestly whether Selo is the right fit, and what the first 30 days would deliver.

Book a call

or write to us: emmanuel@selo.finance