Grounds for Growth

Grounds for Growth: Coffee with the C-Suite

Business EN ↓ 7 episodes

Grounds for Growth Real Laughs. Real Lessons. For Founders Who Want to Scale Without the Stress. Hosted by Caitlin Ferguson (Founder of COOPilots.io & Experienced COO) and Rob Ripp (Founder of Fintelligent , Author of Finance for Founders , & Experienced CFO), Grounds for Growth is the candid coffee chat every founder wishes they had. Between them, Rob and Caitlin bring 40+ years of experience , 200+ founders served , and $200M+ in exits supported . Each episode blends stories from the trenches with actionable frameworks that founders can use right away. Topics range from:

Author

Grounds for Growth

Episodes

Episode 6: True Partnership with Founders (Behind the Scenes) 11.11.2025 37:03

Hosts: Caitlin Ferguson ( COOPilots.io ) and Rob Ripp ( Fintelligent , Author of Finance for Founders)  are a COO-CFO duo discussing supporting founders through growth challenges. This episode covers: Main Discussion Points Valley of Death & Financial Stress Scaling = spending money with uncertain payoff, 18 months later founder only one not making money Success key: Test/track/measure deliber...

Episode 5: Process Automation & AI 04.11.2025 36:04

Hosts: Caitlin Ferguson ( COOPilots.io ) and Rob Ripp ( Fintelligent , Author of Finance for Founders)  are a COO-CFO duo discussing supporting founders through growth challenges. This episode covers: The AI Payoff Goal: Double revenue without increasing headcount through operating leverage For every dollar of revenue, add less than a dollar in costs Labor = 40%+ of professional services revenue -...

Episode 4: Pricing and Profit First, Scale Second 28.10.2025 36:53

Hosts Caitlin Ferguson ( COOPilots.io ) and Rob Ripp ( Fintelligent , Author of Finance for Founders)  are a COO-CFO duo discussing supporting founders through growth challenges. This episode covers: Profit vs. Sales "Sales is vanity, profit is sanity" Case study: $8M revenue, $1M debt, lost everything in pandemic Can scale revenue and still be broke; scale profits and never be broke Profit = free...

Episode 3: Right Team at the Right Time 14.10.2025 42:02

Hosts: Caitlin Ferguson ( COOPilots.io ) and Rob Ripp ( Fintelligent , Author of Finance for Founders)  are a COO-CFO duo discussing supporting founders through growth challenges. This episode covers: Spotting Bandwidth Bottlenecks Obvious signs: Missed deadlines, quality issues, constant firefighting Subtle "energy leaks": Team disengagement, people stepping back, energy drops Catch energy issues...

Episode 2: The Ugly Truth About Your Numbers and Operations 07.10.2025 34:05

Hosts: Caitlin Ferguson ( COOPilots.io ) and Rob Ripp ( Fintelligent , Author of Finance for Founders)  are a COO-CFO duo discussing supporting founders through growth challenges. This episode covers: The Bank Loan Crisis: Founder's bank called a loan worth hundreds of thousands of dollars due to messy books Balance sheets had negative numbers and didn't balance Root cause: Bookkeeper attempting C...

Episode 1: New Level, New Devil (TM) 29.09.2025 35:06

Hosts: Caitlin Ferguson ( COOPilots.io ) and Rob Ripp ( Fintelligent , Author of Finance for Founders)  are a COO-CFO duo discussing supporting founders through growth challenges. This episode covers: The CFO-COO Partnership Finance and operations are highly aligned in founder support work Issues often start in one area (messy books) and reveal needs in the other (operational improvements) Both h...

Preview: Grounds for Growth 18.09.2025 1:50

Coming September & October 2025 In this kickoff, Caitlin Ferguson (Founder of COOPilots.io ) and Rob Ripp (Founder of Fintelligent & author of Finance for Founders ) set the stage for a podcast built for founders who are scaling beyond grit alone. You’ll hear what brought us together, why we’re passionate about guiding founders through the messy middle, and what to expect in upcoming episo...