A CFO for companies that aren't ready to hire one.
Jesse has spent nearly 30 years leading finance teams — as a finance executive at HBO / Warner Media Entertainment, leading FP&A at Vimeo through a growth-to-profitability transition, and for the last 6 years supporting SMBs as a fractional CFO. Mitchell's Financial Solutions puts that work — forecasting, cash, unit economics, board reporting — on a monthly retainer, an hourly rate, or a fixed-fee project. You pick.
What you actually get
Not a framework and not a deck of recommendations. The work is the model, the numbers behind it, and someone senior who will sit with you while you decide what to do about them.
Corporate financial advisory
A senior finance partner for the decisions that don't fit in a spreadsheet: raise or wait, hire or hold, which line of business is actually paying for itself.
Financial modeling & model review
Build an operating model you own and can defend, or pressure-test the one you have before it goes in front of a lender, board or buyer.
Forecasting, cash & reporting
A monthly rhythm you can trust — rolling forecast, cash runway, the handful of metrics that tell you the truth about the business.
Pricing & unit economics
What it costs to serve a customer, what they're worth, and what happens to both when you change the price. Then the change itself.
Expense optimization
A line-by-line pass on the cost base to find the spend that stopped earning its keep, with the savings tracked through to the P&L.
Board & investor materials
Quarterly board support, plus review of financial and tactical decks before they're sent — so the numbers hold up under questioning.
Scope you commission one piece at a time
Most engagements start from a document you already have — a roadmap, a scope list, a board ask. That gets turned into numbered tiers, each priced and estimated on its own, so nothing is bundled into a number you can't take apart.
Map your scope to tiers
Your roadmap gets broken into discrete tiers of work, in the order that makes financial sense rather than the order it was written.
Price each tier separately
Work with a definable scope is quoted as a fixed fee. Open-ended work is hourly, with a written hours estimate before it starts.
Take only what you need
Commission tiers individually, in whole or in part. Hourly tiers your team can handle internally, you keep — there's no penalty for doing your own work.
Re-scope as you go
Each completed tier changes what the next one should be. Estimates are revisited before the next tier is commissioned, not after the invoice.
Four ways to work together
Rates are published because you shouldn't have to sit through a discovery call to find out whether this is affordable. They're also a starting point — pricing can be shaped around what an engagement actually needs.
Quarter-Time CFO
- 60 hours a month — a deeper partner engagement
- A volume rate of roughly $183 an hour
- Board prep, lender reporting, full forecast ownership, weekly strategy calls
- Payment due at the start of each monthly service period; either side can cancel on 5 days' notice
Fractional CFO
- Up to 20 hours a month, including up to 10 hours of live 1:1 time
- Up to 5 unused hours carry into the next month
- Hours past the 20-hour allowance bill at $175/hr — a volume rate that applies within that monthly cycle only, and resets when the next cycle starts
- Payment due at the start of each monthly service period; either side can cancel on 5 days' notice
Hourly
- For defined questions and short engagements
- $1,000 minimum retainer, paid in advance
- The retainer is a prepayment, credited in full against hours worked
- Rates can be tailored to the scope and needs of an individual engagement
Fixed fee
- For work with a clear finish line — a model build, a diligence package, a cost review
- Fixed fee against a written statement of work agreed before anything starts
- Larger projects split into the tiers described above
Bookkeeping & systems — $95/hr
I partner with a bookkeeping firm that handles ongoing bookkeeping at $95/hr. I stay involved on chart of accounts design and financial systems advisory at the same rate.
Runs alongside any of the four options above, or on its own.
SaaS monthly programs
Software businesses have a standing set of needs, so they get a standing set of packages: $2,500/mo for metrics and reporting; $5,000/mo adds cash flow tracking, a monthly strategy call and quarterly board support; $7,500/mo adds weekly check-ins, an operating model you own, and ongoing pricing and unit economics work.
Fixed-fee projects — what they typically cost
Most engagements start with a scoping call, but some come up often enough that the fee is already clear. These are the ones that tend to get a business moving fastest.
- 13-week cash forecast setup
- $4,500 one time
- Operating model / long-range plan model
- $10,000 one time
- Monthly CFO — board or lender pack, forecast, monthly strategy call
- $5,000 per month
- Exit readiness
- $15,000 one time
The exit readiness package ties directly into the LinkedIn series — the same framework, applied to your numbers.
Who this is built for
Two kinds of companies, both past the point where the owner can hold the numbers in their head and well short of the point where a full-time CFO makes sense. The split below is about how a business runs, not how big it is — the revenue ranges are a guide, not a cutoff.
Subscription, media & DTC
- Subscription and SaaS businesses
- Media and streaming
- DTC and e-commerce companies
- Wellness brands
- PE-backed companies in these spaces, preparing for a raise, a lender or a sale
Owner-operated businesses
- Trade and contracting businesses
- Health and wellness
- Multi-entity groups that need one consolidated view
- Owners whose books have outgrown their bookkeeper
- Companies approaching a refinance or sale
Questions worth asking first
How quickly can we start?
Usually within a week of the first call. Hourly and retainer work begins as soon as the engagement letter is signed and the first payment clears. Project work needs a statement of work first, which typically takes a few days to draft once the scope conversation is done.
What happens if we need more than 20 hours in a month?
Everything past 20 hours bills at $175/hr instead of the standard $250 — a volume rate for the heavy months. It applies inside that monthly cycle only and resets at the start of the next one. You'll hear about it before the allowance runs out, not after: if a month is going to run long, that's a conversation, not a surprise line on an invoice.
Are we locked in?
No. The retainer runs month to month and either side can cancel with five days' notice. The current service period finishes out and unused hours within the rollover limit stay available through it.
Do you replace our bookkeeper or accountant?
Not usually. The work sits above the books — using what your bookkeeper produces to run forecasting, planning and analysis. If the books themselves need cleaning up or your chart of accounts is working against you, that can be handled under the bookkeeping and systems rate, and tax filing stays with your CPA.
What do you need from us to get going?
Two or three years of financials if they exist, access to your accounting system, and an hour with whoever makes the spending decisions. That's enough to tell you within the first month what the real constraint on the business is.
Start with a 45-minute call
No charge, no deck. Bring the question that's been sitting on your desk and you'll leave with a straight answer about whether this is worth paying for.
Remote nationwide · In person: Brooklyn, Manhattan, Santa Barbara & LA