The Backbone — Episode 10: Vendor Selection Considerations & Viewing the Finance Function from an Engineering Perspective
Gerti Dervishi, VP Finance at Flybits
Welcome back to The Backbone: a journey inside finance at a startup. On this episode, I chat with Gerti Dervishi, VP Finance at Flybits.
For more background on the launch of this podcast, check out Introducing The Backbone!
Joining me on this episode is Gerti Dervishi, VP Finance at Flybits, a company that enables the creation of highly-personalized mobile experiences that go beyond what is practical with traditional app dev platforms.
Gerti is currently the VP of Finance and Operations at Flybits. Since joining the team in 2012, he has served in a number of roles including project and product management, customer success, and strategy and implementation. Working closely with the Founder and CEO, he has helped raise CAD $15M in funding for Flybits and has acquired a number of Fortune 500 customers globally. Gerti is a management professional with over 10 years of experience in sales, finance, technical project management and strategy. Throughout his career with start-ups, and in private, public, and higher education sectors, he has demonstrated leadership and financial and business acumen in working in leading cross-functional teams. Gerti holds a Bachelor of Science in Electrical Engineering from the University of Ottawa, an MBA from Ryerson University, and a Masters in Management Finance from Harvard University.
On this episode of The Backbone, I chat with Gerti about:
- His path to Flybits after roles in CIBC, IBM and the government;
- What Flybits does;
- Staying flexible with vendors and not placing heavy reliance on any particular vendor;
- Viewing the finance function from engineering perspective; and
- The importance of the finance function at an early stage technology company
We close things off with a quickfire round:
- Go to online resource for all things startup finance related
- Favourite productivity hack
- One thing you don’t leave the office before finishing
Take a listen:
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Check out previous episodes of The Backbone
Episode 9: The Process of Acquiring Companies as a Startup & Best Practices for Investor Relations w/ Ryan Levenberg, VP Finance at Q4 Systems Inc.
Episode 8: Raising VC Funding to Executing an $110M Acquisition + Demystifying the Progressive Roles of the Finance Leader within a Startup w/ Dwayne Walker, CFO at LookbookHQ
Episode 7: Going Through an Acquisition of an eCommerce Company & Keeping Both Sides of a Marketplace Happy w/ Elena Armstrong, Co-Founder & VP Finance at Exact Media
Episode 6: From Finance to Founding an IoT Startup & Bootstrapping vs. Raising Venture Capital w/ Sacha Sawaya, Co-Founder and CFO at Litmus Automation
Episode 5: Difference Between Being an Advisor vs Finance Leader for Tech Startups & When to Raise Capital w/ Eugene Bomba, CFO & VP Operations at ThoughtWire
Episode 4: Transitioning from Professional Services to Finance Leader of Pre-Revenue Tech Startup w/ Chris Parkes, CFO at NuraLogix
Episode 3: Why Finance & Operations go Together & Dealing with the Highly Regulated Financial Services Industry w/ Leen Li, Head of Finance at Wealthsimple
Episode 2: How Finance Scales Growing from 25 to 200+ Employees & Transfer Pricing w/ Les Cullen, Director Finance & Operations at TopHat
Episode 1: Managing Churn & Being Private Equity Backed w/ Daniel Israelsohn, VP Finance & Operations at Firmex
The Backbone is a podcast hosted by Shubham Datta, that explores the journey inside finance at a startup. Each episode features a finance leader (Director/VP, Finance or CFO) that:
- shares their story of how they entered the world of startups,
- explains what their company does
- describes unique challenges he/she faces in their role
- shares expertise relating to specific topics on the mind of finance leaders
