OnlyCFO’s Greatest Hits & Newsletter Stats

The best articles from OnlyCFO and stats on the newsletter’s first year

This week is the one year anniversary of launching the OnlyCFO newsletter! 🥳

When I started writing this newsletter I had no idea what I was doing (still don’t), but it’s been awesome to watch it grow well beyond my expectations.

Below you will find:

1. My most popular articles categorized by what you want to learn about

2. Newsletter stats and review for 2023

I got some fun new stuff planned for 2024 for both free and paying subscribers, so join the 13k+ others reading this newsletter and consider upgrading to paid for the full experience! Email me at onlyrealcfo@gmail.com if you can’t afford the paid-tier price.

OnlyCFO’s Greatest Hits

1. Understanding Finance

• How to Read Balance Sheets - Software Edition

• How to Read Income Statements - Software Edition

• How to Read Cash Flow Statements - Software Edition

• Lies of Stock-Based Compensation (SBC)

2. Software Unit Economics

• Lies of Customer Lifetime Value

• Cloud Unit Economics

• How to Trick Investors & VCs

3. Public Company Deep-Dives

• We Were Warned - Tales of Bad Companies

• Valuation Lessons From Zoom 🔒

• The Valuation Impact of Lost Trust 🔒

• Zoominfo Deep Dive 🔒

• Wild Ride at Bill.com 🔒

• Domo: Cautionary Tale of Hype & Inefficiency

• Are IPOs Good Investments? 🔒

• Monday.com Deep Dive🔒

• Is Klaviyo Richly Valued? 🔒

• The Best 2021 Software IPO

4. Becoming Efficient

• Will AI Save Inefficient Software Companies

• When Culture Kills

• Death From Benchmarking

• Become Efficient or Die

5. Customer Success

• 2023: Year of Customer Success & Gross Churn

• Do Customer Success Teams Add Value?

• Is Customer Success COGS or OpEx?

6. Other Great Content

• CFOs Are Killing My Deals!

• Product-Market Fit Never Rests

• Damage from Mediocre Sales Reps

• A-Players Create Success

OnlyCFO Newsletter Stats

While I am not trying to maximize subscriber count, its interesting for me to look at the stats. My newsletter’s target audience are people operating or investing in the software industry — particularly those interested in the finance aspect of things (which should be everyone!)

Here is how my first year of newsletter writing has gone:

• 1-2 articles per week

• 515,000 emails sent

• Average 50%+ open rate

• 1,200+ post shares by readers

• 54 other Substack newsletters actively recommending

• 0 to 13K+ subscribers

• At least one billionaire is reading my newsletter (👋 Chamath). But I assume several future billionaires are current readers and my newsletter will be attributed to their amazing successes.

• Launched an OnlyCFO paid-tier and became a Substack Bestseller!

  

• Readers in all 50 states and 144 countries. If you know someone in one of the missing countries then please tell them to subscribe.

Do me a favor and share this page with coworkers and friends in the software industry. Everyone should understand finance (not just those in a finance role)!

Thank you for your support, comments, and discussions - this is the funnest part of doing this newsletter.

Best,

OnlyCFO