Hosted by CJ Gustafson · 🇺🇸 US · EN · 298 episodes
Established thought leaders with verified media credentials.
Run the Numbers is a twice-weekly podcast about financial metrics and business models, designed for ambitious people operating tech startups. It's a collection of things host CJ Gustafson (CFO at Partstech and writer of Mostly Metrics) has learned and thought about in the trenches as a tech CFO.This show is meant to serve as a playbook of sorts for the stuff CJ wishes he knew earlier in his career, both from experience and from copying people smarter than himself.Topics frequently touch upon Startup SaaS Metrics, Annual Budgeting, Financial Forecasting, Headcount, Equity, Dilution, and Fundraising – and how all of these drive business performance and growth.
CJ Gustafson hosts Run the Numbers, a business show with 298 episodes published.
In this episode of Run the Numbers, CJ breaks down Lime’s S-1 as the scooter company heads toward the public markets. He gets into the $1.8B valuation, Wayne Ting’s turnaround playbook, Lime’s unit economics, the post-Co
On this episode of Run the Numbers, CJ sits down with Confluent CFO Rohan Sivaram to talk goal setting, prioritization, consumption-based pricing, hybrid zero-based budgeting, and the frameworks finance leaders use to sc
In this episode of Run the Numbers, CJ sits down with Jake Kornreich, CFO of CoLab and former CFO of Own, live from the New York Stock Exchange. Jake breaks down the six-part framework behind Own’s $2.1B sale to Salesfor
In this episode of Run the Numbers, CJ sits down with Dan Bettes, CFO of SoundCloud, at the New York Stock Exchange. Dan breaks down how SoundCloud operates as a two-sided music marketplace, how he thinks about liquidity
In this episode of Run the Numbers, CJ breaks down Bending Spoons’ F-1 filing and the acquisition machine behind AOL, Evernote, Vimeo, Eventbrite, and more. He unpacks the company’s playbook: buy under-optimized digital
CJ Gustafson sits down with Marten Abrahamsen, CFO of Vercel, at the NYSE to talk about running finance inside a hypergrowth AI company. They cover AI use cases in finance, rev rec, forecasting, KPI dashboards, PLG, cons
In this episode of Run the Numbers, CJ breaks down how stock exchanges became the operating system of modern capitalism. From ship captains raising voyage money, to the Dutch East India Company’s first tradable shares, t
In this episode of Run the Numbers, CJ sits down with Ryan Roccon, CFO of Zapier, to cover AI hiring standards, automating month-end close, measuring ROI on AI spend, and why determinism still beats agents most of the ti
In this episode of Run the Numbers, CJ sits down with Aurélien Nolf, CFO of Navan, to unpack how to pre-align before budgeting, how to think about portfolio construction inside a company, when to fund or kill internal be
In this episode of Run the Numbers, CJ breaks down SpaceX’s S-1, unpacking what the filing reveals about Starlink, xAI, X, common control accounting, revenue, losses, CapEx, and Elon Musk’s Mars-linked compensation struc
In this episode of Run the Numbers, CJ sits down with ParkerGale Operating Partner Paul Stansik to break down five ways CFOs can help build a better sales engine: making the budget mean something, improving forecasting,
In this episode of Run the Numbers, CJ sits down with Figure Technologies CFO Macrina Kgil to break down how Figure’s business model works, why traditional lending remains so bloated, and how speed in origination and fun
Cerebras is going public with the largest commercial chip ever built, $510M in 2025 revenue, and a $24.6B backlog mostly tied to OpenAI. CJ breaks down the company’s wafer-scale AI bet, why inference changed the story, t
David Bell, co-founder of Idea Farm Ventures and early investor behind Warby Parker, Harry’s, and Diapers.com, and CJ break down how consumer investing works. They cover why durable consumer companies require more than c
CJ turns the mic on the people behind Mostly Media for a special behind-the-scenes episode of Run the Numbers. Michelle, Callie, Sarah, Matthew, Ben, and Steve share what it’s like building the company, scaling media, ta
In this episode of Run the Numbers, CJ Gustafson breaks down the diamond industry as a business model: how De Beers controlled supply, engineered demand, and built one of the most powerful pricing machines in history. Fr
In this episode of Run the Numbers, CJ Gustafson sits down with Angela Chen, former CFO of The North Face and Mars Veterinary Health, to unpack how finance leaders build and scale iconic consumer brands. Angela shares ho
In this episode of Run the Numbers, CJ sits down with PSG Managing Director Chris Nesbitt to unpack how great deals are actually found, how investment decisions are really made, and why narrative often matters more than
In this episode of Run the Numbers, CJ sits down with Manu Diwakar, CFO of Virta Health, to unpack why health tech breaks traditional SaaS thinking. They get into the realities of running a business where outcomes matter
In this episode of Run the Numbers, CJ sits down with Praveer Melwani, CFO of Figma, to unpack the financial model behind one of tech’s most iconic product-led companies. They cover viral growth, forecasting without a tr
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Run the Numbers is hosted by CJ Gustafson. The show is categorised under business (management) and has published 298 episodes.
Run the Numbers has published 298 episodes.
Run the Numbers regularly covers business, management. It sits in the business category, with a management focus.
Run the Numbers is accessible for guests with genuine business expertise. A personalised, episode-aware pitch will still outperform a generic one every time.
Run the Numbers hasn't explicitly signalled guest openness in recent episodes. That doesn't rule out pitching. your hook just needs to be especially compelling and relevant to their recent content.
Episodes of Run the Numbers average 46 minutes. a focused format where a clear narrative arc and tight preparation matter most.
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