Building to scale: Why unicorns must keep looking ahead.

Unicorn companies all have different origin stories, but most growth paths share a similar landscape, one that is covered with obstacles and navigated at a breakneck pace — straining people, processes, and systems. Things get done reactively, with ad hoc procedures developed to keep moving. Even after reaching unicorn status, the resulting chaos isn’t sustainable, can easily lead to burnout, and may not support continued growth.

Praveer Melwani, Head of Business Operations and Finance at unicorn company Figma, has experienced this fast growth firsthand. He started at the collaborative design company when it had just 25 employees and outsourced its accounting functions. Speaking with Airbase CFO Aneal Vallurupalli at a What I Wish I Knew Session, he remembered starting out with just the bare bones of organizational structure. “I think a really vivid example was when I walked in on my first day and they told me to build my own file cabinet, set up my own desk.”

Scaling people, processes, systems.

Praveer explains that when a company is scaling quickly, people, processes, and systems are tested at every turn — often coming up short. Knowing that big changes lay ahead as Figma moved out of their pre-revenue model to charging for the product, he started with a relatively simple task: evaluating what it would take to scale. They were using an outsourced accountant and he wanted to determine where they were in the company’s lifecycle before he could dive deeper. “I pitched my role as, ‘Let me put arms around the finance and accounting infrastructure.’”

At the time, the company’s infrastructure expenses were primarily rent and payroll, so it wasn’t overly difficult. But knowing that the product was evolving, he was aware the finance role had to look ahead to build the right infrastructure. “I realized that what the company would benefit from was having an understanding of how users were moving through the funnel.”

That led to a bigger undertaking: “Relearning SQL, building dashboards, reorienting and rebuilding our corporate model, and really trying to elevate the role of finance within the organization.”

Hiring for scale.

An often-repeated hiring strategy at fast-growing companies is bringing in people who have seen tiers of scale in prior roles. One of Praveer’s early hires, the strategic finance leader, fitted the bill perfectly and helped the organization lay the foundation. “She was an advocate of saying, ‘I know this might seem like overkill, but the company is moving at such a pace that we have to start thinking about these strategies now.’” She pushed for a five-year plan when strategic planning had previously only looked 18 months ahead.

The impact of finance on company growth.

Interestingly, the strategic finance leader’s push for thinking further forward impacted the company as a whole, not just finance. “That encouraged us to rally as a company,” Praveer says. “What is the company we’re trying to get to? How does the product of today scale? What outcomes should we be thinking about?”

That fits with Praveer’s philosophy that finance should be an advocate in helping product direction as a company grows, and have a voice to inform leaders how decisions are impacting the P&L. “Finance that has a P&L lens helps you make better decisions,” he says.

“Finance should be a strategic function, not a function where you are the gatekeeper or trying to hold the keys.”

Metrics and systems that scale.

Without a solid foundation in place, finance teams often aren’t sure which metrics really matter, and even how certain metrics are defined. That can create challenges for building the right reporting and collecting the right data. Praveer says he was lucky when he joined because the tech stack was largely undeveloped. “Then we were able to all put our special take on what was important,” he remembers.

One key move was switching to NetSuite well before the traditional timeline for an ERP, even though he says, “we weren’t picking up a lot of key functionality from it,” due to their simple processes at the time. “But we knew we had the right tool that would enable us to scale.”

In fact, the early move to NetSuite comes across as one of the biggest lessons for Figma’s sustained success. “I feel like we ripped the band-aid off and we’re seeing the benefits of that now.”

He also advises setting up a scalable AP platform early on.

Systems and people scaling together.

Moving to more robust systems can ultimately help build the people element as well. Praveer pointed out that investing in the right systems shows potential finance hires that the company values those functions.

“When you’re trying to hire your controller or finance leader, they’re going to ask which systems you use. They want to know the level of investment and how much you value the financial stack.

“They want to know that you make good decisions…it’s a great signal to know they’ll feel empowered in the finance function.”

The value of support.

When asked what he wishes he’d known when he started at Figma, Praveer says he wishes he’d realized how much help is available and how many people were facing similar challenges.

“I would encourage people to reach out to build relationships outside of their company to help improve how you operate internally because you likely have blind spots that other people have seen.”

Airbase’s Off the Ledger Slack community is a vetted, no-sales-allowed community of finance professionals to ask for and give advice. Apply to join to ask your own questions about building to scale.

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