Founder Operating Review

The rigor and expertise of a senior CFO. Without the hire (yet).

The judgment of a senior CFO at the speed of AI — everything a CFO would put in order: your numbers, governance, and key decisions, delivered in 30 days.

Human-led: every deliverable is reviewed and signed off by a senior CFO. Your data stays in a private, access-controlled space — Selo never plugs into your systems.

58%

of founders name fundraising their top concern (Slush Startup Struggle Survey 2025, n=607)

18%

say they could raise easily in today's market — investors expect rigor and capital efficiency (Slush 2025)

53%

of founders report burnout in the past year, citing scaling, fundraising and delivery pressure (Sifted, 2024)

Yet most companies stall on AI

71%

of EU companies that considered AI didn't adopt it, citing a lack of in-house expertise (Eurostat, 2025)

53%

pointed to unclear legal and regulatory consequences — governance and compliance blockers (Eurostat, 2025)

49%

held back over data-protection and privacy concerns — fear of exposure or leaks (Eurostat, 2025)

Selo removes all three — the expertise is ours, compliance is built in, and your data never leaves a private, controlled space.

How it works

Three steps. About 30 minutes of your time.

1

Document intake

We open your private Selo workspace; you drop in whatever you have — board decks, exports, spreadsheets, contracts. No specific format required.

2

Build & structure

We organise, model, and synthesise the material into the deliverables below.

3

Review & validate

You review every deliverable before it's finalised or shared with anyone else.

Everything lives in your private Selo portal — reached at a simple web address, with nothing to install and no connection to your systems. After onboarding, it's where you see your numbers and deliverables, kept current as the company grows.

The deliverables

One review. Up to nine working documents.

Tailored to your situation — every deliverable reviewed and signed off by a senior CFO before it reaches you.

Financial clarity

FP&A Model

Budget vs. actuals, cash flow, and runway — so you always know how much time and money you have.

Board / Investor Deck

A polished summary of performance, financials, and key decisions — ready to share.

Governance & risk

Governance Overview

Cap table, org chart, and a timeline of recurring dates — tax, VAT, AGM, board meetings.

DD-Readiness Review

Suggested SOPs and internal controls — prepared if due diligence happens tomorrow.

Stakeholder Map

Suppliers and clients — contracts, terms, renewals, key contacts — to spot dependency early.

Risk Register

Red flags across your documents — legal, financial, operational — flagged by severity.

Decisions & follow-through

Founder Brief

Where the business stands, the biggest risks, and your most pressing decisions — options, trade-offs, and a clear recommendation.

Action Tracker

Findings turned into actions, owners, and deadlines — follow-through, not paperwork.

Source Library

What we've received, what's missing — DD-readiness tracked over time, not just once.

See a sample of the deliverables → An interactive preview of what Selo produces — illustrative demo data.

Is Selo the right fit?

Built for a specific stage of company.

A strong fit if

  • You have real sales traction — paying customers, a pipeline, momentum.
  • Profitability is still a year or two away, so runway, reporting, and investor confidence matter.
  • There's no CFO or COO on the team — finance and admin still live in the founder's head.
  • A board, investors, or lenders expect structured reporting — or a fundraise or due diligence is on the horizon.

Probably not (yet) if

  • You're pre-revenue — keep it lean for now, and come back at first traction.
  • You already have a senior CFO in place — Selo would duplicate their work. A junior finance hire, though, is no blocker: Selo gives them senior backup.
  • You're looking for bookkeeping or accounting — Selo works alongside your accountant, it doesn't replace them.

Where to start

Two ways in.

Start light with a one-off diagnostic, or go straight to the full Review. Upgrade within 30 days and your €1,499 diagnostic is credited toward onboarding.

Standalone Diagnostic

€1,499 HT

one-off

A focused, lighter first pass: where you stand, your biggest red flags, and a preview of what the full Review delivers. Credited toward onboarding if you upgrade within 30 days.

Start with a diagnostic

Full Founder Operating Review

€3,499 HT

onboarding (first 30 days), then €1,499/month

The complete review — every working document, including the full FP&A model — built in your first 30 days, then kept current month to month until you hire.

Start onboarding

Selo runs your finance rigor until you hire — and when you do, the final deliverable is a clean handover pack for your incoming CFO.

Why we built Selo

Boards expect CFO rigor long before founders can hire one.

Boards and investors expect the structure, control and reporting rigor of a senior CFO — often well before a company can justify a full-time hire. That gap is where Selo works.

It also answers a dilemma founders increasingly face. As AI reshapes how finance work gets done, many want an AI-native CFO — but AI fluency usually comes with fewer years on the clock, while the most experienced CFOs are often the most cautious about adopting it. Selo pairs both: two decades of senior-CFO experience and hands-on, daily use of AI — still an uncommon combination.

Founders need speed and accuracy, and usually trade one for the other. AI makes both achievable at once; experience keeps it reliable. Selo's methodology — board cycles, audits and fundraises encoded into an AI workflow, run on a leading model in a private environment and never trained on your data — compresses months of work into weeks, and every deliverable is reviewed and signed off by a senior CFO before it reaches you.

That experience spans very different sectors — pharma, ed-tech, deep tech, SaaS, communications, consumer audio, fashion/retail and solar — because the discipline transfers, whatever the business.

Let's get started

Getting started is simple.

Three steps, and most of the work is on us. Here's the direct path:

1

Tell us about your company

Send a short note on where you stand and what you need.

2

We set the terms

We send a mutual NDA and a simple services agreement — including our data-processing terms — so your information is protected from the first document.

3

Share your documents securely

We open your private Selo workspace — a space for your company alone. You add what you have, and your Founder Operating Review begins.

Email us to start See what you get

FAQ

Questions, answered.

Why use Selo instead of hiring a younger, AI-native CFO?

Because the two rarely come together. Senior CFOs have the judgment — decades of board cycles, audits and fundraises — but most don't yet trust or harness AI. Younger CFOs are fluent with AI but haven't lived the cycles that build judgment. Selo is the uncommon combination: senior-CFO experience, genuine AI fluency, and a decade as a founder's second-in-command — seasoned judgment delivered at AI speed, from someone who understands what keeps founders up at night.

What exactly is Selo?

A human-led Founder Operating Review: we organise your numbers, governance and key decisions into up to nine working documents, each reviewed and signed off by a senior CFO, delivered in 30 days.

Does Selo connect to my systems?

No — and it never will. Selo doesn't plug into your accounting, banking or internal tools, and never merges AI into your environment. Your documents live in a private Selo workspace; we work from there, your systems stay untouched, and nothing reaches back into them.

Who is it for?

Post-traction companies without a CFO or COO, where a board, investors or an upcoming raise demand CFO-level rigor. See "Is Selo the right fit?" above.

Does Selo work for my industry?

Almost certainly. CFO rigor — clean numbers, governance, board-ready reporting — transfers across sectors. Selo's methodology is drawn from two decades across very different worlds: pharma, ed-tech, deep tech, communications, consumer audio and solar. Different industries, the same discipline.

What does it cost?

A standalone diagnostic is €1,499 (one-off). The full Founder Operating Review is €3,499 to onboard, then €1,499/month. If you upgrade from the diagnostic within 30 days, its fee is credited toward onboarding.

What do I need to prepare, and how do I share it?

Whatever you have — board decks, exports, spreadsheets, contracts — in any format. You add them to your private Selo workspace.

Is my data safe?

Yes — data protection is core to how Selo works. Your documents are held to the same privacy standards as a virtual data room: a private, access-controlled space for your company alone. We sign an NDA and a GDPR data processing agreement, encrypt your materials, and never use your data to train AI models. See Data privacy.

Do you use my data to train AI?

No. Selo's edge is its methodology, not your data. We use a leading AI model inside a private, controlled workspace — your documents are used only to build your deliverables, in your own isolated space, and are never used to train the AI or improve any other client's work. What sharpens over time is our methodology and playbooks, refined across engagements — never a model learning from your confidential information.

How long does it take?

The diagnostic is a focused first pass; the full review is delivered in 30 days and needs about 30 minutes of your time.

Data privacy

Your most sensitive information, treated that way.

Founders share their most confidential material with Selo. Protecting it is built into how we work.

Our NDA and Data Processing Agreement are available on request — just ask.

No deck required.

Tell us where your company stands — we'll tell you honestly whether Selo is the right fit, and what the first 30 days would deliver.

Get in touch