The financial strategies, best practices, processes, and habits of successful DTC brands (based on first-hand experience).
Saman Izadiyar is a numbers guy. His passion for finances led him to a mission to serve fast-growing DTC brands through Ottit, a financial services company. Cogsy CEO Adii Pienaar and Saman discuss common practices of today’s business world and challenge you to question them.
In this episode, you’ll learn:
- How budgets are a false ceiling for DTC brands
- Technology, tools, processes, and habits that set DTC brands up for success
- What clarity can do for your business
““Actionable data. That's what it's all about. And it's much easier to stay ahead of the curve than to go back in time and try to fix it.”Saman Izadiyar, founder & CEO at Ottit
Meet Saman Izadiyar
Saman has always had a passion for numbers. His background in finance and prior experience in the ecommerce world have allowed him to build on a mission to serve growth-driven DTC brands.
In 2021, Saman founded Ottit, a financial services business, to help brands with bookkeeping to scale faster and better.
Before Ottit, Saman co-founded Bloomy Wellness, a supplement brand for kids acquired in 2022 by a private purchaser.
Connect with Saman on: LinkedIn | Twitter
About Ottit
Ottit is a leading provider of financial services designed to support the rapid growth of ecommerce businesses. With a focus on streamlining administrative tasks and delivering reliable bookkeeping solutions, Ottit empowers you to concentrate on what truly matters: Expanding your business to reach new heights.
Learn more about Ottit: Website
The Checkout episode 38 unpacks:
In today’s episode, Adii Pienaar and Saman Izadiyar walk us through their recommendations for building successful businesses, including processes, habits, and tools. Here are the highlights:
Saman’s journey entering the DTC space
- How Saman’s love for clothing got him into the reselling business at 18 years old
- A terrible experience at the start of his career when he was scammed for $30k
- The workarounds that got him over challenges as he started his wholesale business
The challenges brought by Covid-19
- How Saman had to pivot to a mask DTC business during the pandemic and ended up selling 3 million masks.
Daily habits that will set you up for success
- A business owner’s worst financial mistake
- The one thing Saman does as a daily practice to keep his finances on point
- Saman’s proven strategy to project revenue
A book recommendation: Simple Numbers by Greg Crabtree
- Why you should do bookkeeping for your business on a weekly basis
- Greg Crabtree says, “Don’t budget, project, or forecast” instead
- “Projecting out or forecasting out, both revenue and expenses, put you in a position to take action.”
- “Your business is entirely different from day to day. You don’t know what’s going to happen.”
Budgeting — to do it, or not to do it?
- “I think budgets are very good if you have no discipline with money. And I think they’re very bad, if you’re putting a ceiling. So it, it goes both ways.”
- How bookkeeping will tell you the full story you need to know about your business
Building clarity within your business
- “The clarity that you can showcase to someone not only has a representation of your business, but it even tells the person that’s investing in — these guys care, these guys are on it, these guys know what’s happening in their day-to-day operations, and that it is somebody that they can trust in and give more money to if you’re going that route.”
- How Ottit’s financial back office services help businesses build the clarity they need to succeed
- Automating processes to keep assets and expenses organized
Reporting sales on a cash basis vs. accrual basis
- Why you should start reporting sales on an accrual basis
- “If you’re doing anything on a cash basis, everything will hit your PNL as soon as it’s recognized on your bank. But now you don’t have a clear idea of what’s going on because you don’t understand what your assets are.”
Empowering teams to do great work
- The importance of recognizing the mission of your business and communicating it to the team
- Why you should gamify challenges within your business to incentivize teams
- “When you empower smart, ambitious, and aligned people to work, they can do great things.”
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