302: Refreshing the Role of Finance with Mosaic

Summary: In this episode of Startup Junkies, hosts Caleb Talley, Davis McEntire, and Grace Gill were joined by Joe Garafalo, the COO and co-founder of Mosaic, a technology company building its first strategic finance platform. Joe has a background in finance with a varied career history, but he has found his true passion in developing Mosaic in order to help companies do their jobs more efficiently. Though Mosaic is just getting started, they have a future of success and growth ahead of them. Throughout the episode, they discussed how Mosaic got started, what it looks like now, and what’s on the horizon.   Thanks for tuning in!   Show Notes: (1:15) Origin Story (6:58) What Mosaic Looks Like Now (7:40) Ease of Implementation (8:48) Target Company Size (9:45) Building Mosaic’s Teams (13:11) Co-founder’s Journey (14:32) What’s Next for Mosaic (15:40) Weathering the Current Economic Storm (22:31) Advice to Younger Self   Links: Caleb Talley Davis McEntire Grace Gill Joe Garafalo Mosaic   Quotes: “Once [the first version of Mosaic] was built, people would ask us questions and we would get back to them with an answer in a couple minutes. And they were like, ‘Hey, it used to take you guys like three or four weeks to respond to us’…so we showed them what we had built and they were like, ‘Hey, put a front end on top of this tool so that we can interact with it.’” Joe Garafalo, (4:32)   “What we're building at Mosaic is much more generalized so that any company can plug in, regardless of the nuances of their individual businesses.” Joe Garafalo, (6:00)   “As a founder, you should do all of the jobs across the company. So for us, we were three finance guys. We had never sold, we never did marketing, we never did product design. But the cool part about it was as you embark on the journey and you do all of those individual jobs, you learn what the qualities and the traits are, the skill sets that you need to then go out hire for.” Joe Garafalo, (11:03)   “The most important thing is we want to build an important company that helps people do their jobs more efficiently.” Joe Garafalo, (14:43)