Dear hustlers, founders, operators and visionaries,

In today’s episode, we sit down with veteran Finance leader Simone Rüschenberg on her experience from building Finance functions at Gorillas, TIER, SoundCloud, and HelloFresh. What emerges is not just a roadmap for startup finance, but a reflection on navigating hypergrowth, managing chaos, and building resilient systems (and people) along the way. Simone doesn't sugarcoat the journey and tells from everything on ERP horror stories to the mental weight of daily "bombs going off."

She offers a masterclass in what really matters: clean data, cross-functional trust and a ruthless prioritization mindset. Exclusively for our newsletter subscribers, Simone has shared additional insights below.

🎧 Tune in now on Spotify, Apple, or wherever you listen to your favourite podcast.

In the meantime: Follow the Gradient and stay tuned!

🫶🏼 Melanie & Christian

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How to build and scale a Finance function

What you will get out of this episode

In our conversation, Simone shares:

• How to identify the right moment to bring finance in-house and stop outsourcing

• How to scale your finance tech stack step-by-step without overbuilding

• Why messy data is a silent growth killer, and how to clean it up early

• How to survive (and thrive) as a CFO in high-speed startup environments

• and much more!

Our main take away’s

1. Clean data is your startup’s GPS: Simone underscores that messy data doesn’t just slow you down—it scales your mistakes. Founders should treat clean data as a non-negotiable from the earliest stages, especially when prepping for Series B and beyond.

2. The finance team must evolve with the company: From tax advisors and spreadsheets at Seed to in-house teams and modern ERPs by Series B, Simone maps the essential inflection points where finance needs to level up—or risk becoming a bottleneck.

3. Soft skills now outweigh technical skills for finance leaders: Tomorrow’s CFOs are less about number-crunching and more about strategic leadership, storytelling, and cross-functional influence. Building trust with the CEO and other departments is key.

4. Automation is real, but not magic: While tools are evolving fast, AI won’t fix broken processes. Simone makes clear: before layering on automation, finance teams must clean up internal workflows and ensure humans are still in the loop.

5. The best support is community: Simone’s personal antidote to startup burnout? A strong peer network. Having other CFOs to turn to—especially during ERP rollouts or AI transitions—isn’t just helpful; it’s essential.

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How to reach out to Simone

• LinkedIn

• Finance Collective DACH

• CFO Playbook

Exclusive from Simone

What is success for you?

For me, success means I’ve found a rhythm: I love going to work in the morning, and I’m just as happy coming home in the evening – that balance wasn’t always there. In my case, it’s about helping CFOs & their teams move forward, while making sure family and work give me energy instead of competing.

What books, podcasts, articles inspired you?

I like to mix light and deep content: I often listen to the Fast & Curious podcast, read the Doppelgänger newsletter (very entertaining and a lot on AI), and for more depth I enjoy the In Depth podcast from First Round.

What’s one advice, founders should actually ignore?

“Raise money as soon as you can.” Fundraising is glamorized, but chasing investors too early distracts from the real work: validating the business, proving product–market fit, and showing revenue traction. If you focus on performance and building a strong business, investors will come to you not the other way around.

What are habits, activities or rituals that keep you sane (while scaling your business)?

I’ve learned to block regular me-time without guilt – it only works if it’s firmly in the calendar. For me that means two sport sessions a week, and from 6–8pm it’s family time with our little son. I also get a lot of energy from meeting friends – typical extrovert 😉 – so I usually carve out 1–2 evenings a week for dinners or catch-ups.

If you had €50k to spend on finance tooling today, where would you put it first – what’s the highest ROI system or tool?

Think holistically, not just finance tools – CRM, data warehouse, billing, and accounting need to work together. I’d put the €50k into the data warehouse first, to connect all systems and create one source of truth. Add automated revenue recognition, clean invoicing, and (for manufacturing) inventory tracking. The real ROI comes from the connections and instant access to clean data for faster decision-making – not from any single tool.

About which AI tools are you most excited about that could really (or already) have a huge impact on the finance function? Any experiences / examples to share how you applied it or saw it applied in companies you advised?

It’s still early days – most finance teams are hesitant to use LLMs directly, since they’re not (yet) great with numbers. But there’s a lot happening in the tool space right now. One area I’m most excited about is the next generation of ERP-like systems. For years I’ve talked about the “death of ERP,” but tools like Rillet suggest we might see a comeback. Not as the old, heavy “legacy” systems, but as modern, AI-native all-in-one platforms. These could potentially replace the current mix of ERP and best-of-breed solutions, bringing finance back to a truly integrated setup. Fingers crossed ;)

If I’m a founder listening to this and want to “future-proof” my finance function, what are the three concrete actions I should take in the next 30 days?

Test your setup – Can you answer investor questions instantly, or are you waiting days? If finance can’t handle new revenue streams, it becomes a blocker. Don’t lock yourself into legacy systems – the AI wave is coming fast.

Build your data foundation – Create one source of truth for revenue, cash, and unit economics. If systems don’t connect, scaling will hit a wall.

Get the right team & network – Once you hit ~€10M ARR or 50+ people, bring in real finance talent. Plug them into a strong network (e.g. Finance Collective DACH) so they can move fast and avoid reinventing the wheel.