23. From Hot Dogs to Wall Street: Building a Finance Business That Actually Scales with Donny Mashiach

Donny Mashiach is the Founder and CEO of Warrior Group, a finance services firm helping founder-led, scaling businesses install stronger financial infrastructure through fractional CFO, bookkeeping, controller, and strategic consulting services. Donny started his entrepreneurial journey running a kosher food concessions operation at Wrigley Field before moving through investment banking on Wall Street - working on billion-dollar deals in industrials and beyond. Three years ago he founded Warrior Group and has since grown to 15 CFOs and 15 analysts, with a sharp focus on fashion and apparel brands scaling past $5M. In this episode, Donny and Jack dig into why the thing that gets you to $1M is exactly what breaks you at $10M, how to quantify every opportunity in your business, and what it actually looks like to build financial infrastructure that drives decisions - not just reports. Chapters: 00:06 - Scrappy vs. Sophisticated: Donny's Take 01:45 - Growing Up Entrepreneurial in Chicago 03:30 - From Investment Banking to Warrior Group 04:48 - Getting the Wrigley Field Contract in 3 Days 07:37 - From Zero to 35 Clients: How Warrior Group Scaled 10:36 - Why Founders Wait Too Long to Start 13:28 - The Scrappy Win That Felt Better Than $50K Contracts 16:22 - Fashion and Apparel: The New ICP 19:23 - What a Real Fractional CFO Actually Does 22:01 - Building the Roadmap from the Founder's Why 25:00 - Finding $1M in Obsolete Inventory from the Numbers 27:04 - Scrappy vs. Sophisticated Lightning Round 33:24 - Deep Work at 3am and Pushing the Business Forward 35:34 - Where to Find Donny and Warrior Group Guest Links: Website: https://warriorgp.com Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/donnymashiach Connect with Jack: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jack-tompkins/ Company: https://www.pineapplecf.com Pineapple Analyst: https://www.pineappleanalyst.ai/ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCalnj5yLU0ZH9y_tVl1J4ng