On The Liquid Lunch Project, Salvatore Tirabassi reframes the modern CFO role beyond bookkeeping, walks through how to package a winning lender deck, and shares how CFO Pro+Analytics uses AI and automation to deliver high-end finance work at a fraction of traditional cost.

Table of Contents

• Turning the traditional CFO model upside down

• The three lighthouse goals at every engagement

• Real stories from family-owned businesses

• Debt vs. equity: how to think about raising capital

• What belongs in a winning lender deck or pitch deck

• How CFO Pro+Analytics uses AI and automation

• Brooklyn roots and business career

• Where to find CFO Pro+Analytics

Matthew R. Mian & Luigi Rosa Bianca: Today we want to revisit the role of CFO. The traditional role has been based on accountancy, reconciliations, and bookkeeping. Today we’re turning that upside down. We’re going to focus on a CFO’s true role—financial modeling, capital raising, and operational improvements. Salvatore, tell us how your firm is doing this.

Salvatore Tirabassi: We’ve packaged high-quality CFO services into a permanent part-time solution for emerging companies ($3M to $50M in revenue). These businesses often can’t afford or don’t need a full-time team, but they need the expertise. My background—15 years in venture capital and 9 years as an operating CFO—allowed me to create a methodology that delivers high-end capability in digestible, affordable chunks.

Matthew R. Mian & Luigi Rosa Bianca: What are the “lighthouse targets” your firm looks to achieve?

Salvatore Tirabassi: We focus on three core themes:

1. Single Source of Truth: Ensuring the whole organization operates from common information. No more cross-talk about profitability or growth rates; everyone agrees on the data.

2. Due Diligence Ready: Building systems so that at any moment, a buyer, lender, or insurer can ask a question and receive high-quality data. It makes storytelling for investors seamless.

3. Equity Value Creation: We are constantly driving decisions that push more profit into the business for the owners.

Salvatore Tirabassi: Working with family businesses is unique. I once saw a founder-owned company lose lender confidence because their forecasting was off. The lender actually forced the CEO and COO to swap roles. It was a massive hit to their professional egos.

Another current example is a 15-year family brand that bootstrapped from scratch. They are facing an existential crisis due to potential 154% tariffs. They have a respected product, but they’ve realized they might have to stop shipping entirely because they’ve already negotiated retail prices and would hemorrhage money on new shipments.

Salvatore Tirabassi: Equity is permanent capital, which is a huge advantage, but it brings partners into your business and increases reporting complexity. Debt is often a stepping stone.

For founder-owned businesses, being smart about debt is key. We often help clients refinance expensive Merchant Cash Advances (MCAs) or home equity loans into more sustainable business debt. Sometimes taking expensive debt is actually better than bringing in an equity partner who never leaves. But remember: if you raise equity and become successful, don’t regret the dilution. It’s better to have a smaller piece of a much larger pie.

Salvatore Tirabassi: A winning deck needs a topical table of contents and a sharp executive summary. Follow that with Key Investment Highlights: revenue growth, stable margins, new acquisition channels, or key leadership hires.

If you are going to a lender, show them a projection that includes their loan. Show them exactly how the $5M line of credit will flow through the business to drive growth. It makes them feel safe because they can see the company’s future with their capital injected.

Salvatore Tirabassi: We use tools like Zapier and Make to connect data systems without needing a massive IT budget. This feeds our dashboards and reporting.

For high-level analytics, we use Claude. I recently did a commissions rework where we fed Claude 1,000 records of past sales and asked it to recalculate them under a proposed new plan. It did the work—including organizing the results into performance deciles—in 20 minutes. Without AI, that would have taken an analyst several hours.

We even used Claude to rewrite 50 modules of complex “M code” into Python just by uploading screenshots. It understood the code, validated the logic, and produced a working Python script with only minor changes needed.

Salvatore Tirabassi: I was bootstrapped from the age of 13. Growing up in Brooklyn, you navigate diverse social dynamics every day—pickup games, street life—which teaches you to relate to all types of people. That ability to adapt and be self-taught is what I bring to the businesses I advise today.

Salvatore Tirabassi: Visit us at cfoproanalytics.com. We have practical tools like asset-back loan comparisons and LTV calculators for founders. You can also find me on LinkedIn, where I post regularly about mid-market finance and analytics.

Salvatore Tirabassi is a fractional CFO and founder of CFO Pro+Analytics, helping founder-owned and family businesses build the financial infrastructure to grow, delegate, and exit on their terms.

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