**Working thesis:** Solo founders past $100K in revenue gain more from a fractional CFO than they expect, because the real value isn't in bookkeeping — it's in pricing, capital decisions, and the questions a founder hasn't yet learned to ask. **Reader transition:** Reader starts: "A CFO is what bigger companies need. I'm fine with a bookkeeper and Xero." Reader ends: "The thing I assumed was a luxury is actually about getting paid more and making fewer expensive mistakes. I should at least talk to one." **Outline:** 1. **The bookkeeper trap** (200 words) - Lands: solo founders default to "I have a bookkeeper, that's the finance function." This solves compliance but doesn't solve strategy. - Move: name the symptoms of having only a bookkeeper (gut-feel pricing, uncertain about runway, surprised by tax bills, no view on which customers are profitable). - Transition: most founders interpret these symptoms as "I need to read a finance book" rather than "I need a finance partner." 2. **What a fractional CFO actually does at this stage** (300 words) - Lands: at $100K-$1M revenue, a CFO isn't doing the math you can't do — they're asking the questions you don't yet know to ask. - Move: three concrete examples: pricing reviews, customer profitability analysis, cash-flow modeling that surfaces decisions earlier. - Transition: this raises the obvious objection: "but I can do this myself with spreadsheets." 3. **The "I can do this myself" trap** (250 words) - Lands: founders can technically do it. They don't. And the cost of not doing it shows up six months later. - Move: an example or two of decisions that look strategic but are actually finance decisions in disguise (raising prices, hiring vs. contracting, when to take debt). - Transition: the math of hiring. 4. **The actual cost** (250 words) - Lands: fractional CFOs typically cost $2,000-$5,000/month for 5-10 hours of work. The breakeven isn't "did they save you $3,000?" — it's "did one of their inputs lead to a single better pricing or capital decision?" If yes, the math is trivial. - Move: a back-of-envelope: a 5% price increase you wouldn't have made on your own is worth more than the CFO's annual fee for most businesses past $100K. - Transition: how to actually find one. 5. **How to talk to one without committing** (200 words) - Lands: the right first move is a paid 90-minute review session, not a contract. Most fractional CFOs offer this. - Move: what to ask in that session; what a good answer sounds like. **Sections to consider cutting:** - Section 4 is the riskiest. If the numbers don't land cleanly, it sounds like a sales pitch. Could be combined with section 3. - An opening anecdote was tempting but excluded. The piece is already short; an anecdote would push it past 1200 words without earning its space. **The strongest objection:** "I'm too small for this; $2K-$5K/month is a real chunk of my revenue at $100K." Section 4 has to handle this; the framing of "is the input worth one good pricing decision" is the answer. If section 4 doesn't carry that weight, the piece collapses.