Finance teams break as you grow. We build one that scales.
We build the finance function for lower middle market companies, and we run it alongside you: redundant so it never depends on one person, automation-first so it scales without new headcount, and staffed by operators who work the decisions with you, not scorekeepers who hand you last quarter's numbers. Underneath it runs an intelligence engine that reads your market, your funnel, your cohorts, and what AI search says about you, so every call is made on a current read. Deepest in ecommerce and wine.
Book a call, send a message, or just ask a question.
Veteran-owned and operated.
Financial IQ for lower middle market companies
Two lines of work.
Fractional CFO →
Fractional and interim CFO leadership that works the decisions alongside you, not from the sideline. AI search visibility and finance automation are part of how this work runs, not separate services.
Wine Country Intelligence →
AI advisory for wineries, built on a quarterly benchmark of Central Coast wineries and what AI search says about each one.
Finance is the function that breaks quietly
In most lower middle market companies, the finance function grows by accident. One person learns where everything is. The close depends on them. The reporting is a stack of spreadsheets no one else can run. It works, until it doesn't: that person takes a week off, or leaves, or the business doubles and the manual process cannot keep up.
By the time it breaks, the cost is already paid. Decisions get made on last month's numbers. Cash surprises show up late. The owner becomes the backstop for a function they never wanted to run.
A finance team should do the opposite. Run without depending on any one person. Catch the problem early. Tell you what to do next, not just what already happened.
The RAID model
We build and run finance functions on four principles. They turn finance from the bottleneck that breaks into the function that scales with you.
Redundant
Documented, cross-trained processes. No single points of failure. The function runs whether any one person is in the building or not.
Agile
Automation before headcount. Systems handle the repetitive work so the people handle the thinking, and the function scales without a hiring spree.
Intelligent
Finance that operates like an owner, not a scorekeeper. It does not just report what happened. It drives what happens next.
Data-Driven
Every workstream owner carries three to five KPIs tied to real business levers. A current read on cash, margin, and the metrics that move the business.
RAID is the standard behind every Engage and Manage engagement. See how the RAID framework works →
A CFO lens, not an agency lens
Most market intelligence is built by marketers, for marketers. It tells you what's trending and where competitors are spending. Useful, but it stops at the top of the funnel.
We read your acquisition the way a CFO reads a P&L. Cash flow modeling. CAC and LTV at the segment level. Forecasting. Inventory planning. The pricing decision that adds margin and the one that quietly subtracts it. Which AI-search result is showing up for buyers who actually convert, and which one is just impressions.
The work product is intelligence; the discipline is finance.
Two ways that work
The difference is not the size of the number. It is who owns the books.
Engage
A CFO alongside your team
You keep your finance team. We bring senior judgment and the intelligence engine to the decisions that actually move the business: pricing, hiring, capital allocation, channel shifts, annual planning, and we hold the function to the RAID standard so the team you have runs tighter between sessions. For founders and CEOs who have execution covered and want a CFO working the decision moments with them.
Manage
Your finance department, run by us
We are the finance function. Close, cash, books, investor reporting, and the CEO dashboard, built on RAID from the first close and run by the CFO with an embedded team and the engine underneath. For founders and CEOs who would rather not build a finance team at all. Run for a small number of clients at a time. See the full Manage page →
Not sure which one is you? That is the Intro Call. Both are scoped there, against your actual situation, not off a price card.
Your buyers are asking AI who to buy from
Before a prospect ever reaches your site, they ask ChatGPT, Claude, or Gemini who to trust in your category. That answer is built from your whole footprint, not just your website, and if you are absent from it you never get the visit. As part of the Fractional CFO work, we read that answer the way we read the rest of your funnel: which touchpoints it draws on, where you are missing, and which fix is worth making first. For wineries, this is Wine Country Intelligence.
What changes when the finance function runs to a standard
These are the signs to watch for. How fast they show up depends on where the business starts.
A close you can trust
A documented, repeatable close that does not depend on one person, so the numbers arrive on a set schedule and can be compared month to month.
Cash you can see coming
A 13-week cash forecast kept current on a cadence set for your business, so a shortfall shows up early enough to plan around.
Margin you can act on
Margin and acquisition cost read by channel and by customer cohort, so spend moves toward what pays back and away from what does not.
Decisions made on a current read
Pricing, hiring and channel calls made with a CFO alongside you, on this month's numbers instead of last quarter's.
We are not a marketing agency. We are not a BI vendor.
We don't run your ads, your campaigns, or your content calendar. We don't sell you dashboards you won't open. We build finance systems and the automation underneath them, tell you what's actually happening and what to do about it, and, for Engage and Manage clients, work the decisions alongside you. Marketing execution stays with your team or your vetted partners.
Where we go deepest
The work translates across many industries. Two market segments where we have built the deepest methodology and operating playbooks:
Ecommerce →
DTC ecommerce brands across site, marketplace, wholesale, and retail. Each channel has its own CAC, margin, and cash cycle, commingled in one P&L. The market segment we know deepest. See the DTC ecommerce playbook →
Wineries →
Wineries balancing club, tasting room, DTC shipping, and distribution. Each customer base has different acquisition, retention, and lifetime value math. The quarterly Wine Country Intelligence Report benchmarks every tracked winery in Santa Barbara and San Luis Obispo counties →
We also work with health and wellness and elective-medicine practices, and with founders and CEOs in other industries. If you're in the lower middle market, we likely still fit. Start with an Intro Call.
You already trust these owners to someone. Make it us.
CPAs, bankers, and advisors send us the founders and CEOs who have outgrown their finance setup. You earn a commission on the work that follows, and your client gets a CFO who makes you look right for the introduction.
What founders ask before they hire us
We build and run a scalable finance function for lower middle market companies, on a model we call RAID: redundant, agile, intelligent, and data-driven. Underneath it runs an intelligence engine that reads your market, your funnel, your cohorts, and what AI search says about you, so every call is made on a current read instead of last quarter's numbers. Engage and Manage are the two ways to have that CFO alongside you: Engage when you keep your finance team, Manage when you want us to be it.
Lower middle market companies, including small and family wineries. We go deepest in two market segments, DTC ecommerce brands and wineries, and we also work with health and wellness and elective medicine practices. We work in person across six coastal California counties, from San Luis Obispo to San Diego, and remotely with founders and CEOs elsewhere. Main Street IQ is veteran-owned and operated.
An agency sells you campaigns and reports on impressions. A BI tool sells you dashboards you will not open. We sell you the CFO's read on whether your acquisition pencils out, the cohorts that compound versus the ones that churn, and the pricing decision that adds margin versus the one that quietly subtracts it.
Pricing depends on your situation, so most of it is scoped on the Intro Call rather than printed on a tier card. The published prices are the county edition of the Wine Country Intelligence Report, Monitor, and Monitor Plus with its extra-peer add-on for wineries, and the Website Audit, which is open to any business. Everything else, you hear the number once we understand the business.
Book a 30-minute Intro Call. We talk about where the business is today, where the gaps are, and which offering fits your situation. If we are not the right fit we will say so.