Insight

What it takes to go from £10m to £100m

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Scaling a company from £10m to £100m asks a lot from the people leading it. Anyone working in finance will recognise the mix of pressure and pace that comes with rapid growth.  

Tom Platford joined us on Chat CFO and walked through his journey at SuperAwesome, starting shortly after the Series A and staying through every major financial milestone that followed. His story captures the reality of moving from early-stage chaos to a structured high growth environment, through private equity, strategic investment, an acquisition, and finally a management buyback. 

Choosing tech and the road into finance leadership 

Tom can still remember the moment he stepped away from the typical economics graduate path. During his final year at university, he had been applying for banking internships, then heard a line from The Office that stopped him. “You get thrown together with these people that you don’t know. You didn’t choose it, but you end up spending more time with them than your friends and family.” It made him reconsider everything. 

He loved technology, so after talking with a mentor he trained as a chartered accountant at EY. It was difficult at first, although the qualification opened doors. BBDO Europe and Pancentric followed, where he took on his first P&L, built a finance function from the ground up and eventually moved into the tech world for good. His first CFO role came at SuperAwesome, where he stayed for eight years. 

Growing through each funding stage 

Tom arrived shortly after the Series A. “We effectively experienced the whole financial life cycle apart from an IPO.” Each new investor and each new round shifted the way the company operated. Private equity brought new expectations. A strategic investor changed the structure again. Venture debt added another dimension. And entering a multinational environment forced the team to adjust to rigid specialisms. 

Throughout that period, he became what he calls an expert generalist. “You are deep in particular areas, but the real power is gluing it together end to end.” In due diligence he would face investment bankers, lawyers, tax specialists and diligence teams. Each had deep expertise. His advantage was knowing how the entire business worked. 

“On that journey from scaling from 10 million to 100 million revenue and achieving an exit, you learn a lot.

We effectively experienced the whole financial life cycle that you could experience within a business bar an IPO.

You are deep in particular areas, but the real power is gluing it all together end to end.” – Tom Platford, Fractional CFO

Owning operational technology 

One of the surprises was how much operational technology fell under his remit. The CTO ran the product. Everything else ended up with Tom, from the CRM and marketing platforms to HR and ERP systems. The CTO called him the “CTO of shadow tech”. 

The BI stack became a turning point. Before it existed, their CRM lived in a spreadsheet. The moment he plugged a BI tool into that spreadsheet he could see the path ahead. Joining systems, creating a data lake and giving teams live dashboards gave the company a new level of speed and clarity. He believes finance should own BI because it supports the story being told at board and investor level. 

Moments that tested him 

Two difficult periods still stand out. 

The first came during COVID, at the exact moment the deal with Epic was being signed. His financial controller had left, the interim had a personal emergency, the audit was coming, and no one else knew about the deal. “I had no idea. I said, I’m sorry, I’ve got nothing right now.” He walked the dog for a long time, slept, then found the solution the next day. 

The second came during the buyback when redundancies were necessary. Some people were joining a new chapter while others were leaving on the same day. “Walking around the office felt like a battlefield.” It was emotional, although essential to the transition. 

Leadership as the company grows 

He believes great leadership stays rooted in authenticity and connection. The shift between stages comes from knowing how to change gear. A small company needs leaders who zoom in and out, solve problems quickly and cover broad areas. Larger environments give you specialists, so you can zoom out and think longer term. 

He also thinks the modern CFO must care deeply about storytelling and design. “You’ve done all the work, but you still have to tell the story.” Numbers must land clearly. Formats matter. Presentations matter. The narrative matters as much as the figures. 

 

Balancing structure and agility 

SuperAwesome grew at a pace that meant plans often changed. Structure was important. Budgets, hiring plans and targets grounded people. But new products, new markets and new investor expectations created constant twists. “You need a foundation of structure with the ability to be agile on top of that.” 

He believes companies hire CFOs too late. Most new CFOs arrive to unwind issues caused by stretched early teams. It is also why fractional support needs the right model. Two days a month cannot fix anything. A fractional CFO must solve the big problems up front, then move into a lighter rhythm once the foundation is stable. 

I was the CTO of ShadowTech. If you’re scaling from 10 to a hundred million, and someone is not thinking about operational tech, you’re not able to get there efficiently.” – Tom Platford, Fractional CFO

Managing the pressure 

Due diligence brought extreme pressure. He remembers working through two nights without sleep. Looking back, he would do it differently. Sleep became his top priority. Running helped him clear his head during lockdown. So did time with family and keeping space for passions. “The line between job and recreation is pretty blurred for me.” 

Advice for the next generation of CFOs 

Tom sees curiosity as a core trait for anyone wanting to grow into a CFO role. He wants people to keep asking why something is being done, stay close to new technology and look for ways to challenge habits that hold a business back. His experience at SuperAwesome taught him that progress often comes from trying things that might not work, learning quickly and moving forward with more clarity than before. He also believes finance leaders will need strong storytelling skills.  

The numbers only land when the narrative behind them is clear, so he encourages people to think about how information looks, how it reads and how it feels to the people receiving it. He talks about empathy and design in the same breath, because both influence how teams engage with the systems and models a CFO puts in place. 

Key takeaways 

  • Curiosity helps finance leaders question, refine and improve how a business operates. 
  • Learning quickly after something fails keeps a company moving in the right direction. 
  • Clear storytelling makes financial insight easier for boards and teams to act on. 
  • Good design improves the experience of models, dashboards and reporting packs. 
  • Empathy strengthens partnerships across the organisation and supports better decision making. 

Listen to the episode of the STOIX Podcast

To hear Tom Platford’s full conversation, watch the complete podcast episode here:

To connect with Tom or explore more of his experience and insights, head over to Tom’s LinkedIn profile.