FP&A with Josh(y) Starr

[MUSIC] >> Hello and welcome to the Career Canvas podcast where we explore an inside look into different industries from future leaders, their work, and their stories. Today we are blessed to host the one and only Josh or Joshy Star. Josh, welcome to the podcast. >> Thank you for having me. >> Should we do Joshy? >> It's a pleasure to be here. Here's the story. I am the youngest of three, but my next oldest sibling is 10 years older than me. So I'm 10 and 12 years younger than my brothers. So they always called me Joshy since I was little. So now still my close friends call me Joshy. So we're close friends, you can call me Joshy, but professionally I'm Josh. And in Israel, professionally. Josh. >> Josh. >> Of course. >> Josh, that's Josh. >> [LAUGH] >> Well, we'll stick with Josh for now. Josh works in tech as a senior F.E. and A customer success manager whose main responsibility is to drive value for clients. Did I get that right? >> Correct. You got that right. >> Okay, sounds good. Have a good day. Actually, let's talk a little bit. What is F.P. and A? What does that stand for? >> F.P. and A is financial, planning and analysis, almost every business. At the very least, mid-sized businesses to large companies and enterprises have F.P. and A departments where they are responsible for essentially forecasting and budgeting and analyzing financial data. Within that also managing headcount, analyzing operations. And projecting how things are going to look in the future. >> No. >> That's like in a nutshell. >> Got it. So, what would be an example of a forecast? You're trying to forecast what kind of revenues are going to come in, how much spend is going to be, how much money you need to raise for a specific ground. Like, were am I touching on some of the things, am I missing some of the main stuff? >> Absolutely. So, revenue, you might want a forecast revenue. How much business is going to come in, which segments where is the business going to come in, and you might make projections for growth. Okay, we might have 5% growth year over year of this product, the 2% and this product. And then you could expand out how's this going to look over the next 12 months, the next 5 years some people do. But then growth terms of revenue impacts other areas. So, that's going to also impact spending. So, ultimately, you want to be able to responsibly gauge how your company is functioning right now, but also projecting in the future. That could also impact how many employees you're going to hire. And you have to make some smart assumptions. And then specifically using our product, we like to give people the tools to build a forecast and even compare different scenarios in various assumptions in order to best gauge how the outlook of the company going forward. >> So, what kind of tools do you use in order to figure this kind of stuff out? If I'm making $10 today, then is it sort of like interest? You're like, okay, well, if I have 4% interest, that means I'm going to have 4% more next year. What kind of tools do you use? >> Okay, so I work at DataRells and we specialize in an FNA software, which is geared for Excel users. So, we're not asking you to get rid of Excel. The best, I think, in terms of forecasting, Excel is, in my opinion, still always going to be the best, but it does have some of its shortcomings. The tools the main tools we're using are I'm using as a, in my role with my clients, is DataRells as a product. And specifically, Excel with DataRells. So, it's mainly Excel and DataRells combined. >> Excel is one of those things where people are trying to replace it, but it's not really replaceable. >> 100%. Now, at the same time, like, when you're dealing with not just one person, you're dealing with an entire organization, and you're sending files across, and there's data coming from a million different sources, Excel become, in Hebrew, a lot of times we'll use, like, sometimes we'll get a file. Wow, this is a misflexed, it's like a monster. Like, some people have financial models, which are literally monsters, and it takes, you know, PhD to just figure out what a planning software does very nicely, is that it organizes it, and compartmentalizes the different information to create, like, a seamless process. >> That's interesting, because I found that when I'm doing something personally, just for a project that I'm working on, or if I wanted, I find that Excel gives me the most flexibility and computational power. But when I want to, you know, find myself more and more using something like Google Sheets when I'm doing it with other people, or using some of the design that Google brings in, and I guess this is a similar type of thing where Excel, I guess it was just on its own, you might still want to use Excel, but when you want to try to scale it and share it between the entire organization, that's when it can use a little bit of help. Is that sort of where data rails is coming in? I'm sure there's probably extra layers. >> Yeah, I mean, there definitely, there are definitely extra layers. I'll say something that just to your point, I had a mentor who told me, especially when you're making organizational change, or whenever starting any process, don't start thinking software, start everything with Excel. And then, once you figure out the logic and how you will, so then you can graduate to like a different software. And I think that holds true in almost every department or any process within an organization, but certainly to your point, computationally, start with yourself. I mean, I happen to love, depends on the day, whether, I mean, we're nerd to nerds, so I hope this is okay. Some days I'm like a Google Sheets guy, some days I'm a classic Excel guy, but my love for spreadsheets is, you know. >> I don't know if you know this, but when I went to study industrial engineering and my whole love, the first name that everyone said to me, "Oh, so you talked to Joshy?" You talked to Joshy? And apparently, you were the first, I guess, native English speaking person to study that degree. And I was the second. >> So, you're not the second, but there were some, let's say, good ol' and there's some great people before me, Benjamin Miller, who had finished before I even started, Rabbi Benjamin Miller, and Joseph Sucanek. >> Sure. >> And he even taught me what I like, an Excel course. And then somebody named Daniel Gutenberg, who is like a legend in my whole love. So those are the anglos that come into mind in that field. >> I missed a couple before you, but you were the name that people kept telling me. And I'm I'm reaching out to you and you were helpful. So let's take a step back. How did you get into this, maybe the Excel course in my whole love inspired you the way that it inspired me, but what was your introduction to FPNA? >> I didn't know that I wanted to go into FPNA at all. I started out working in within a small company, a company called Nanonix. I worked in, I think it was kind of a little bit of everything. So I was basically like the right-hand man of the CFO, but in a small company, the CFO is also a COO. So there's a lot of like operational, there's a lot of finance. So without knowing that I was doing FPNA, I was actually doing a lot of FPNA. And my best skill that I had was Excel. So I was utilizing Excel, not knowing that I was doing FPNA and doing FPNA. After moving on from Nanonix, I had more of a formal finance role. And then they supplemented a lot of stuff like there's a lot of accounting that goes into FPNA that we didn't study in our industrial engineering degree. So that online, I don't know if I self-taught, but if you call linda.com self-taught, so we're linked in learning now. >> Linked in learning, right. >> Gotta get with the time. >> Yeah, so linked in learning, and eventually I paid for it, but at some point, like I was just kept doing free trial after free trial, but it was great good stuff. So then I was a little bit more formal in the FPNA world, and then during COVID, I got laid off. So then I was looking for a job, but at that point, I had some formal finance skills. I always felt like, and my parents have been telling me forever, like you need to work with people, people, people, like clients, not just people, like you're always working with people. And data rels was kind of this like, me, this technical, to somebody with technical skills, FPNA, who was also a customer success manager, like facing customers. And like that, that facing customer's thing was what I was always lacking. So to tell you this story, I actually at the time, like the first few months of COVID, like if you sent a resume, you were drawing into the garbage, like there's no point. But one of the things started opening up a little bit. So I was actually in line for, which is a nice position. in the VN, I was pretty advanced in three different job opportunities. And DataRals was actually, at the time, at DataRals is doing amazing, but at the time DataRals was very small and pretty much unknown. And I called Rachel Berger from Neffes van Neffes. We went to the three different options and she was just like, "You need to go to DataRals." This unique skill set of the finance of the technical and the people facing, like, "You got to do it." And Rachel Berger, thank you. That's great advice. I've had an experience as well. I started in a company and I was after my degree, I was a data analyst. And I really didn't like it. I was just, 'cause I needed to be with people. There's not that many roles or that many people that are going to really want to be involved with the technical stuff, but also need to a certain extent to be working with people. It's funny, 'cause even when you go back to the decision to study industrial engineering, how many people studying now, they made the degree a little bit more modern, but how many people are going to work in a factory? But they want to do it like classic engineering, but I also didn't want to do business. And I found that industrial engineering was like that middle ground. So now, like, in a lot of the business, try to supplement by reading lots of business books. I totally can understand that. I only found out that industrial engineering a few months before the year started, planning on studying something completely different. So is there a degree that you study industrial engineering? What if someone's doing FT&A? Is there a best path to do industrial engineering, would a finance degree be better accounting? Yeah, I would say by us, like we have a collection of many super talented, like looking at that or else, my colleagues are super incredibly talented. There are a few with industrial engineering degrees, with a vast majority studied, most of them studied accounting. I think that is the regular, the most classic path to get into the FT&A. But FT&A, I think, FT&A is a little bit more analytical in terms of technical skills, than I'm sure I'll get a hate mail, than classic accounting. So I'm not sure if a lot of my colleagues could ask them, but did they get their technical skills from the degree, or they kind of picked it up or supplemented it, or did a minor, but certainly classic accounting, you're lacking the same level of technical skills that industrial engineers get. But to supplement it with maybe a data, like an accounting degree with data analysis, that's probably the best way to go. I think there are many paths to get to FT&A. So if someone is coming to you, and I just listened to you on Career Canvas, and I'm inspired, I love this idea of FT&A, and maybe even it plays like data rails, where I can also be a customer facing, but also be working with spreadsheets and making cool models. What's the piece of advice that you'd give this person to how to get their career started off? Starting with a degree, I would probably say, either probably accounting, maybe like a strong business degree, where there's a heavy amount, where there are some accounting courses. You got it like, FT&A, the building blocks of FT&A are financial statements, or even before the data behind the financial statements. So a deep understanding in accounting is definitely critical. I'm not familiar with business degrees enough to know what level of accounting you've got from that. But in general, I think just being inquisitive and wanting to learn and wanting to grow. So many degrees now are so, excuse me, so many jobs now are not exactly what a degree is. If I would ask you, how much of your industrial engineering degree are you using today in your job? You can ask, I don't want to put you on the spot. You're the interviewer. I would say not so much from the actual practical things that I studied, but the ideas and the concepts have been helpful. How to map systems, what's going on behind the scenes of how applications work. Is there some of the things that I got from my information system classes and things like that? I would agree with that. At the end at the same time, and I'm guessing that you would agree, like zero regrets from the degree the degree gave you a way to think, the way to approach things and pretty happy with my career path. And I really think that the foundations of the degree are the same foundations that I am using today, even though they literally are not one to other Apple Star engines, but somehow they do transit. Right. It's interesting when you, by the conventional engineering, they call it the Jack and Hulk trades master of none. So if you can go back now and you are talking to your 18 year old self, and you wanted to get a piece of advice that your 18 year old self, what would you tell Josh? I would definitely, I mean, this is like, I'm already like, I feel like an old man saying this, but I would definitely, I kind of like, I was very into sports in high school and then like, once I got, I kind of just stopped. There are a few things I think I would never want to put more emphasis on sleeping, but more emphasis on exercise. And I think like doing those two things in a healthy diet also is important. But I think like, it's really the foundation of a successful day, and we build successful, when your mind is sharp, then like everything starts adding up. You're able to really build a successful days, successful months and successful months to lead to successful years. Sometimes you try to do too much, and I guess that's what I would tell myself. Slow down a little bit and be okay. In addition, I subtraction. I don't know, I'm not like Albert Einstein, but like, it's like a different world, like having a good night sleep, sharp mind, and no distractions super early in the morning. That's what I try to do. Often I see that you are posting on LinkedIn. Sometimes it's about your work and what you do, data rail. Sometimes it's about personal stuff. I saw it a post that you did about your daughter and how she, you could talk more to that. What gives you the motivation to post? Okay, so joking. I stay away from Twitter and Facebook and other social media. So, if, whatever, if all that I have left is LinkedIn, so then it gives me the, that fix that everybody else has at Facebook and Twitter. So, I'm not going to be a good person. On the other hand, I try, and I don't know anything about marketing. But I try to, sometimes, when it's for my company, I try to promote the company when I can. Now the marketing is so good, I do it a little bit less. But definitely in early stages of data rails, I would try to promote the company in ways that I could. I try to do that as well. But sometimes things are hit or missing. I've really figured out what's, what's catching and what's not. Sometimes you get in a good rhythm. I don't know, like, would, I don't know, for me, if we get like a hundred likes, it's like really impressive for me. And then sometimes you think like I put a lot of thought into something and then nothing. I haven't done enough analysis with the people who understand things about marketing to figure out what's good. But usually just not much thought that I put into it. There's no Excel formula that you created in order to understand what kind of post how much. That's definitely, definitely not. I was talking to somebody else about this. And talking to a loser Hughes and a previous episode of Kirk Canvas, she's in social media. I was asking her what's the, what's the algorithm? How do you break, how do you break LinkedIn? How do you get your stuff so people can actually see it? Because seemingly you want your posting it just to share with other people. So you want other people to see it in order to share. Otherwise, you could write in your diary, you don't need to write it. Thank you for watching. And she was saying how, yeah, there's, LinkedIn changes so quickly all the time. It doesn't really make sense. So just post consistently, clearly, and, yeah. Like sometimes you'll hit sometimes you'll miss and. There's not. Yeah, you don't know the algorithm. Yeah, right. Or like, do you add a picture? You had a carousel. You had a video. So that's a fight like I know clue about one thing I do notice and I haven't done it for a while. But this actually is successful. Nobody wants you to promote. Nobody wants. You to promote yourself. Like, if I say like, I don't know, like, look at my Excel formula that I made. Like nobody cares. I find that promoting colleagues sincerely. Or colleagues or friends. People, people, people like that. Like take the attention. If you take the attention away from yourself. And give something relevant for other people. And those, those are probably my most successful posts. But if it's for the right reasons, people will react nicely to it. They're looking for the genuine post, the genuine message. Yeah. Well, on that note, what is your favorite productivity hack if you have one? I think it's a great question. I guess you have so many. Like, it's so hard for me to like get started in a day. Like once I'm in a zone, I'm good, but to get in the zone is really, really hard. I find. I'm probably the worst person to ask. But once, once I get, once I'm like in the zone. I put on some classical music. And sometimes. I'm going to look at them and date it for this. I put on jock jams. And put that on in the background. Then I could really, this is not when I'm talking to a client. Let me be very clear. What I'm doing like. Other work. Music is a is your productivity classical music. No, they're two very different things. Yes. But both can do the job. And then I think that's what I'm talking about. I think that's what I'm talking about. And I think that's what I'm talking about. And I think that's what I'm talking about.