Beyond the Spreadsheet: Modernizing Maintenance Management with Patricia Sagastume

Patricia Sagastume, the head of Finance at Limble, shares her entrepreneurial journey with us. Rooted in a family of entrepreneurs, Patricia’s story is one of grit and growth, as she recalls her early days at a software escrow company that prepped her for greater ventures. Alongside her brother, she co-founded Limble, a computerized maintenance management software powerhouse that has grown from a bootstrapped startup to an industry contender.

Patricia unpacks the financial evolution of startup life. From bootstrapping to building structured financial systems, she offers insights on managing cash flow, budgeting, and forecasting. With a dual role in finance and HR at Limble, she highlights the importance of clear planning processes and alignment across executive teams. Through her insights, listeners gain a deeper understanding of how finance teams drive key business decisions and resource allocation at various stages of growth.

As we look ahead, Patricia paints a picture of Limble's strategic planning for future growth, whether that involves an IPO or acquisition. She emphasizes maintaining healthy cash flow and ensuring compliance readiness, with an eye on system upgrades and the potential of AI tools to enhance efficiency.

Chapter Summary

(0:01:01) - Entrepreneurial Journey and Limble's Success

Patricia Sagastume's entrepreneurial journey to co-founding Limble, a CMMS company with a $8 billion market potential and recent Series B funding.

(0:14:25) - Financial Evolution in Startups

Strategic evolution of finance in a startup, emphasizing cash flow management, budgeting, and forecasting, and the role of the finance team.

(0:22:52) - Financial Strategy and Growth Planning

Strategic financial operations, healthy cash flow, building FP&A team, compliance and audit readiness, system upgrades, and AI tools for efficiency.

(0:37:39) - Connecting With Limble

Connecting with Tricia and exploring opportunities at Limble, using LinkedIn and Limble's careers page, and inviting her to keep us updated on Limble's progress.

Key Quotes:

On the evolving role of finance: "As the company grows, it's less hustle and muscle, and more your value is your ability to predict the future and bring about financial models into the company as early as possible."

On the importance of cash flow: "Number one thing through this journey was keeping the company in a healthy cash flow position, and I was able to do that with days to collect."

On the potential of AI: "I think we're really far off on the AI side. I think the best AI on the finance is just the better rules creation and then like, much better recall on like reporting and querying data."

On the importance of strong financial frameworks: "The best frameworks still live in the minds of great financial professionals, and hopefully, that involves time, and they build out and share those great models."

Recommendations:

Explore the potential of Mosaic.tech for implementing financial frameworks and tracking SaaS metrics.

Investigate Cube software as a more affordable alternative to Snowflake and Tableau for data visualization and reporting.

Stay informed about emerging AI tools but approach their implementation with a critical eye, focusing on accuracy and integration capabilities.

Resources mentioned:

Lex Fridman podcast