Mastering SaaS Models: Derek Baker's insights on building robust SaaS models

Today, he works at Neighbor.com, a Series B startup, building the “Airbnb” of personal storage. Building the FP&A function for a marketplace has been the biggest challenge of his career, and he is loving every minute of it.

Listen to this episode as Derek shares:

• How he got into financial modeling for SaaS companies

• His advice for building robust SaaS Models.

• The importance of understanding a business to build better Models.

• Everything about SaaS and SaaS Companies.

• His position on controversial modeling issues, including circular references, dynamic arrays, modeling standards, AI in modeling, and more.

Quotes:

“ The only way you're really going to learn how to build a model is by building it. You can do all the study you want, but at the end of the day, it's like anything, without practice, it's just theory. ”

“ The better you know an industry, the better you know the operations of the business, the easier it is to build a model.”

“ [ What separates good FP &A from great FP & A] I think it's 1- business acumen and 2- business partnering. Anyone can build a model in Excel and can learn those technical skills. But using those technical skills to help the business and partner with the business to help them understand the business better and grow the business is exactly what FP&A should be doing....”

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