✨ Hey there this is a free edition of next play’s newsletter, where we share under-the-radar opportunities to help you figure out what’s next in your journey.
Applying old concepts to new areas—sometimes known as “Lateral Innovation”—can be an amazing way to solve problems and create value. Airline loyalty programs inspired the foundation for SaaS subscriptions. Nintendo built the Gameboy using a bunch of withered parts from other industries. Observing how birds fly informed the Wright brothers as they invented the first airplane. The list goes on.
While it’s not a perfect science, the process of Lateral Innovation often starts with asking yourself a question: “What if X was more like Y?”
Some of our very quick brainstorming:
“What if school classes felt more like game shows?”
“What if the DMV was more like Disneyland?”
You get the point (and we’d be curious what sort of scenarios you come up with).
As we looked for teams doing this sort of thinking very well, we stumbled upon the folks at Numeric. Numeric was more or less started with a lateral question in mind: “What if accounting teams could operate as productively as engineering teams?”
Quick: when you picture the day-to-day life of an accountant, what comes to mind? Spreadsheets? Checklists? Paperwork?
Accounting is an example of an industry that’s plagued by inefficient infrastructure. An industry where technological progress has been slow moving, causing everyone (accountants, customers, etc.) to suffer as a result.
It does not need to be this way, though. You could imagine a world where accounting firms and accountants had access to better infrastructure - better tooling that augmented their abilities and made their job more efficient and higher leverage.
To bring about this change, it’s likely not enough to think incrementally (e.g. we could build a better formula for this existing spreadsheet)—you really have to approach the set of problems with a fresh mind and desire to make things better for all stakeholders.
Numeric Co-founder & CEO Parker Gilbert describes the situation well: “While sales, marketing, product, and engineering teams have had their pick of great software to help with their work, much of accounting is still done manually in Excel sheets. That’s exactly why we’re excited — there’s a wide open space to build great products in and truly transform the industry. As opposed to making something 5% better, we’re in the rare arena where we can make something 100% or 200% better and faster.”
Instead of thinking narrowly in spreadsheets and manual processes, the Numeric team sees the core of accounting more like a “financial data problem.” This is the sort of problem that has been solved numerous times in other industries – the solution to which is not making more spreadsheets, but rather building an easy-to-manage web of data integrations, workflows, and (ai-powered) automations. The whole team adopts this attitude of trying to think like “accountant engineers” - where the outcome is building 10x better systems, resulting in less manual work for accountants and more meaningful careers for everyone in finance.
We thought Numeric would be an interesting company to Spotlight because their approach to solving a real problem (with real revenue!) by diving deep into a messy legacy industry is one that can inspire other founders and operators to explore deeper as they navigate the idea maze.
Oh and also because they are hiring for roles in every department: sales, design, recruiting, marketing, engineering, etc. (As they recently raised a $28 million Series A).
And so in this essay, we try to understand: what is it really like to work at Numeric? What are the behind-the-scenes details (which never make it to press releases) that you may find interesting or useful?
[Major thanks to many people from the Numeric team for sharing this information and supporting next play!]
Parker, the founder/CEO of Numeric, was the first finance hire at a venture backed start-up. There, he was responsible for managing their first audit and building out all of the accounting infrastructure. This gave him a front-row seat to many of the nuanced challenges every organization faces when managing their books and finances.
While it’s one thing to abstractly understand the inefficiencies, it’s another thing to _actually_ be responsible for the end-to-end process. To actually own all the numbers on the spreadsheet and verify they were correct.
Most “startup people” do not have this depth of experience or on-the-ground understanding. In fact, most people actively avoid it. And that’s perhaps at least part of the reason why the accounting space at-large still very much relies on antiquated spreadsheets.
Because of this, if you’re Parker, and you’re trying to build a team and culture to take on this problem you’ve found that you know is important and could one day be very valuable, you’re faced with a tricky problem: how do you build a world-class product (something easy to use, something that saves customers dozens of hours a month) to an industry that ~basically no one really understands (unless they themselves have had the experience of for example doing a months-end reconciliation)?
There’s probably not a one-size-fits-all solution but here’s what Numeric did—they hired people who simply loved doing great work.
“We hire people who love work. People who get deeply excited about the opportunity to get better at their craft, people who get near obsessive about the art of company building. If you really geek out on what you’re working on — this is a place for you.”
“Success at Numeric comes down to ownership, curiosity, and a commitment to excellence. The best people here are proactive decision-makers who trust their teammates and seek input—not because they need permission, but because they value smart perspectives. It’s a place where high autonomy meets high collaboration. Everyone takes pride in their work, not just as a job but as something meaningful. They find fulfillment in solving problems, moving the company forward, and playing "the game" at a high level. “
“We hire former & future founders. It’s honestly hard at Numeric to find people who **don’t** want to found their own company (or found something!). This translates to a real sense of collective learning, of full transparency into company decisions, and deep ownership of work. If you aspire one day to found a company, you’ll find a community of aspiring founders to learn from here.”
“Success at our company comes down to two key traits: autonomy and collaboration. Engineers here thrive when they can own and drive large projects with little guidance while also deeply engaging with their teammates. We love pairing up to tackle tough bugs, diving deep into problems together. Every person we hire should make conversations move faster, not slower—collaboration here is fast, fun, and intellectually challenging. If you love both independent execution and high-energy teamwork, you’ll fit right in.”
“We tend to hire "positive" people - confronting Goliath incumbents in the space requires real leaps of faith at almost every turn. While it manifests in different ways for each member of the team, there is an undercurrent of a near delusional optimism here. If you tend to side on the “yes, it’s possible” camp — you’ll be at home.”
“I think there are people who view their job as a job. People who clock in and clock out and view their job as something that pays the bills. That’s not Numeric. There’s a real zest, intensity, and, perhaps cheesy to say, love even, for what we’re doing here.”
You probably have some of these types of people in your life (or this may perhaps be you) — the type of people who simply like doing great work. Like solving problems. Like taking on big challenges. Like caring about small details. Like winning. You know the type.
At Numeric, they look for people who want a lot of ownership and responsibility (and give them exactly that!):
“One of the most surprising (and refreshing) things about working here is how much trust is given to engineers. At many companies, shipping a feature means navigating multiple layers of approval. Here, you own your work end-to-end. When you decide it’s ready, you have the power to deploy it. That doesn’t mean we aren’t careful—it’s on you to get extra eyes when needed, talk to customers, and make sure the release is successful. The level of ownership and speed is unlike anywhere else, and it makes the work incredibly rewarding.”
“I joined the team with no explicit marketing experience — I now lead our marketing team. Our Head of Solutions is a former founder with no explicit customer success experience. One of our leading engineers is a former screenwriter. This is very much a place where your appetite to dig in, learn the ropes quickly, and then makes a huge impact trumps experience. I’m often surprised, honestly, by the level of scope and responsibility that I’ve been given and how quickly we accelerate the careers of people who come in through the door and immediately begin to illustrate they can do excellent work.”
“Our environment isn’t a great fit for someone who needs a lot of hand-holding or layers of approval to move forward. Engineers here thrive on autonomy and ownership, so being proactive and self-driven is key. Similarly, titles matter less than earning respect through impact and hard work.”
“If I imagine a solution to a problem, I can act on it. If I have an unconventional idea I truly believe will work, there’s no barrier to bringing it to life. Being able to run with ideas and have the trust and autonomy to experiment is exactly what I want at work. And I laugh a lot. Big bonus.”
“People who do not want to work outside of the specific mandate of their job are not a good fit. As an early-stage startup, we need colleagues who are willing to do whatever it takes to build the company.”
“There’s no fear of failure here. People take risks and try hard things daily.”
The leadership team is very bought in on this idea of empowering everyone on the team to be effective:
“The leadership I received is a great example of servant leadership. They do all they can to provide me with whatever I need to do my job well.”
“Leadership here is all about clarity and trust. They define a clear long-term strategy and ensure alignment, but they don’t micromanage—each team has the autonomy to plan and execute in their own way. They’re also highly accessible and open to feedback, creating a fast-moving, high-trust environment. Our CTO and co-founder, Andrew, is incredibly sharp and an amazing programmer. My first project was working with him to build a new version of our report-building pipeline, and I learned a ton. It’s motivating to work with leaders who set such a high technical bar and push everyone to get better.”
“Beyond personalities, the founding team is transparent (case in point: everyone on our team has access to the company’s accounting!) and low-ego.”
“We’re an accounting tech startup competing against massive incumbents with 500+ engineers, and the only way we win is by being smarter, faster, and more customer-focused. Engineers here get full ownership—from shipping features to talking to customers—and we bias toward speed while staying sharp on quality.”
In the right environment, bringing fresh eyes (and lots of energy!) to a legacy industry can also be a superpower. It can help you find creative, effective solutions to problems that people too entrenched in their ways would probably glaze over or deem impossible to solve.
Numeric gives these sorts of “company-building athletes” (engineers, operators, salespeople, etc.) exposure to a plethora of “ready-to-solve, high value problems.” The result can be very powerful.
“Teams are increasingly leveraging AI within Numeric to rethink and automate their recurring workflows. Over the past year, our ARR has grown 4x. We’ve welcomed leading private and public companies as new customers, including OpenAI, Plaid, and Brex. ”
“It’s fascinating to see the layers of complexity in the month-end close and how intricate the process is for some of our clients. It also quickly becomes clear why they rely on Numeric—it’s solving a real pain point in a way that just makes sense.”
They also hire subject-matter experts with, similar to Parker, first-hand experience facing problems in the space:
“We recently brought on Chris Canoles as Head of Strategy. Prior to joining Numeric, Canoles spent 20 years at EY, where he was an audit partner specializing in supporting high-growth SaaS companies through critical milestones, including IPOs. His work included advising companies like Okta and Dropbox on their journeys to going public—many of the same types of businesses that Numeric supports.”
“Through my time working on Brex's banking product, I had a front-row seat to many of the problems that accounting and finance teams run into day to day. It became clear to me that the existing tools in the space were antiquated, and that there needs to be a modern data-platform for accounting and finance teams. In leaving Brex, I was looking for a company that was solving these problems, and of all the companies I explored, Numeric was that startup that was solving them in the most intelligent, pragmatic manner.”
“As a former auditor and product operations manager, I’ve seen how disjointed finance workflows can be. At Numeric, we’re redefining cross-collaboration - not just in accounting but across finance and beyond - by bridging gaps and creating a shared platform for seamless teamwork. One of the best parts of my role is being at the intersection of customer feedback and product innovation. I work closely with customers to understand their challenges, test solutions firsthand, and collaborate with our EPD team to shape tools that solve real-world problems. That constant feedback loop keeps me excited about what we’re building.”
With this approach, it can sometimes be challenging to build a unified culture. You sometimes end up with splintering between the “old way of doing things” and “the new way.” At Numeric, they have not seem to have had much of this issue - people we spoke with really emphasize just how fun and energizing working at the company is:
“I would describe "Numericans" as people who take their work seriously, but don't take themselves or each other seriously. In other words, we take pride in our work and work really hard, but laugh along the way and don't have egos attached to our work.”
“Everyone here is so energetic! You'd think that start-up might be a bit exhausting but apparently, when you do things you enjoy, those hours aren't tiring at all.”
“We are pragmatic, highly curious, goofy, and move really fast. People here tend to "bring their whole selves to work" - we try to build a work environment where people feel comfortable being their full authentic selves.”
“We keep meetings to a minimum. Being in person and operating in a high-trust environment means you can just get things done. And when a conversation is needed, calendars are open for a quick chat.”
“I typically describe Numeric as a place that's deeply serious about company building and not serious about anything else. In fact, we’re almost deeply serious about not taking ourselves too seriously :) “
“It's hard to sleep at night because I'm so excited to come to work every day.”
This playful energy manifests in the many stories people have about working at the company:
“On my first day in the office, our bathroom was locked from the inside, and our head of marketing jumped on the roof and through the window to unlock it. Nothing like a bit of grit and elbow grease to set the tone. (also this was totally safe).”
“Numeric’s culture is built on ownership, collaboration, and celebrating the wins—big and small. When a salesperson closes three deals in a day, they get a soccer ball for the hat trick. When a deal closes, we hit the gong. If it feels like a good Friday, we grab Arsicault. But none of it feels gimmicky—people here genuinely care. Everyone takes their work seriously, but we also make space to enjoy the process.”
“After work one day, we had an impromptu “happy hour”—which really just meant blasting music and assembling furniture together. It was hilarious and surprisingly fun, collaborating with the same teammates but in a totally different way. Now, as the team has grown, it’s even more rewarding to walk into the office knowing we literally built it with our own hands. It’s a great reminder of how hands-on and tight-knit our culture is.”
“In the early days of the company, two team members purchased a homemade lamp made of cans on Craigslist for the office. The little robot lamp in the corner soon evolved into a full company icon — he was named Eric Num (the inverse of our company name 😂), the team documented and illustrated the “Origin Story of Eric Num” in a fake biographical fashion, strapped an old iPhone to his back to enable him to “talk” (typically a flurry of light teasing, jokes, etc.), and then more recently starting a weekly Friday drop of a new Eric emoji. Every Friday, we release a new hand-drawn Eric in our #eric-drops-channel — most often a reference to an inside joke developing in the company or company tradition. There’s a “Too Cold Eric” built for the NYC squad when the office heating wasn’t quite working, there’s a “Climbing Eric” created for a team member who’s a climbing fanatic, and an “Il Canto Eating Eric” to represent our very frequent runs to our favorite burrito spot. It’s a wildly silly thing for a start-up to have as a ritual — but it’s also entirely reflective of this culture we’re building together. One where we bring people on to quickly expand into new roles and responsibilities so much it’s nearly terrifying (in the best way) and where we take a quick break to laugh at ourselves.”
“We have brick walls in the SF office. There were a few times I attempted to climb that wall during my lunch breaks and got noticed. A few days later, one of the co-founders jokingly put up a "No climbing" sign on that wall. And of course, I climbed up to see more clearly what that sign is about. :)”
As we mentioned earlier, Numeric is hiring lots! They prioritize in-person hiring (in San Francisco and New York) for many reasons, our favorite being “It’s damn fun that way. Real hard to play foosball over a Zoom screen. And even harder to quickly make decisions, have that water-cooler-conversation-turned-epiphany that I personally experience about once a week, and truly get to benefit from the zany, smart group of people in the room.”
To get in touch with the Numeric team, you can learn more here, apply here, and reach out to this email they made especially for next play candidates if you have any questions or ideas for them: talent@numeric.io.
And if you’re looking to see more from next play, you can head over here where you’ll find lots of under-the-radar content and opportunities.
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