Meet the company that 10x'd their revenue in 10 months
How Campfire is building an ai-powered ERP
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Last week, we wrote about a startup that has very little competition. They face basically no incumbents—that is because they are building in a brand new space as they try to invent a new consumer-grade AI experience. These types of companies can be exciting because they have tremendous potential; if they are correct about their vision of the future, then they can be first to market and capture tons of value.
There’s another type of company that also has tremendous potential, but for very different reasons. I am talking about a company basically taking the opposite approach—finding a space with lots of demand, lots of competition from legacy players, but being able to seize market share because they are able to build a materially better product.
Competition is not inherently a bad thing. It means you have demand. The question is if you can cross the chasm and build something truly better than anything else on the market.
Not just incrementally better. No one would use a product if it was just a little bit better. It needs to be much better. Something 10x better from the status quo. An experience so good and useful that large enterprises would switch to, both because it handled all the pain points found in products offered by the old-school players but also because it found ways to go above and beyond expectations and deliver tremendous value.
If that sounds a bit lofty, it’s because it is. These types of ideas are rather obvious—in that everyone knows they would be valuable if they worked—but very hard to execute. There’s little margin for error, and so it takes a special type of founder and special type of company to actually make them work well.
That’s why we wanted to go behind-the-scenes with Campfire. They are building a modern, AI-first ERP that supports next-generation finance and accounting teams.
An ERP is an Enterprise Resource Planning tool. It’s the sort of software that nearly every business in every industry uses to manage critical functions like accounting, finance, payments, and more. If you are not familiar with using today’s ERPs, you should consider yourself lucky. Go talk to your finance department, and they’ll show you software that looks like it was built twenty years ago.
One reason that we have seen so few “modern” ERPs is that they are complicated to build. They are basically a sort of internal operating system for lots of businesses. And so qualities like comprehensiveness and reliability are very important. There’s a lot of data moving around a business, and the ERP is more or less the brain of the entire operation.
Campfire’s vision is to bring modern software to the world of ERP. They seem to be well on their way—they have grown their annual recurring revenue 10x in the last 10 months. This summer, they raised a $35m Series A from Accel. One of the reasons is that they have very strong customer reference checks (you can read a whole bunch of them here). And they are hiring in SF for 12+ roles across customer success, sales, marketing, design, and product (apply here!).
So we thought it would be helpful to dig into Campfire and learn more about the company. What is it like to work there? Why is it working? All that and more below.
And major thanks to the Campfire team for sharing details with us and supporting Next Play.
Behind-the-scenes with Campfire
It takes a special type of founder to start Campfire. In case it is not already obvious—taking on the world of ERP is both ambitious and daunting. It’s a lot of work. It’s not a consumer social network you’re hoping to go viral. Or some trendy opportunity you can win over via a weekend project. It’s the sort of product that would take many months to even build a suitable MVP, let alone the years that go into making a really comprehensive enterprise-grade system.
But when you meet John Glasgow, the founder/CEO/CFO of Campfire, it’s not really a surprise that he started this type of business. In fact, it feels quite obvious.
John was previously a finance executive at several successful companies where he felt the pain of dealing with legacy ERPs.
“My own journey as a finance executive at companies like Adobe, Invoice2go, and Bill.com exposed just how much pain legacy ERPs inflict on growing companies. Through the $625M acquisition of Invoice2go, I experienced it all firsthand, our accounting workflows and financial reporting was all in spreadsheets, because our ERP simply wasn’t built for modern teams.”
He’s also an angel investor in a number of startups (many of which have had successful exits). And so he has seen the “ERP pain” first hand many many times.
You can pair this extensive experience with a work ethic his team describes as “world-class”:
“Our CEO/founder John is the hardest working person at Campfire. As a sales-led founder, watching him take sales calls, show demos, work on implementation, and do everything he can for our customers to have the best experience on Campfire since Day 1 shows great leadership in the company starting with him from the top.”
“John is the most hardworking person I've ever met. At every turn I'm shocked by how much he's able to shoulder and do for the team and the company.”
Combined, you get someone who is capable of leading from all fronts while remaining calm and optimistic throughout the journey:
“John is a truly exceptional leader. I’ve never seen someone handle immense pressure with such calmness and approachability. His composure inspires the entire team, and from day one, he encouraged and believed in my abilities—leadership like that builds confidence and drives everyone to do their best.”
This blend of leadership skills, experience, and passion makes Campfire a great fit for a founder like John. And John is a great fit for Campfire, as they aim to build a modern ERP (that eliminates ERP pain for teams everywhere).
We were curious how someone like John—someone who has seen his fair share of startup successes and failures—would go about building a company culture.
One thing we have noticed is that companies who have CEOs/founders with finance backgrounds, or at least people with a very intimate understanding of how the world of finance functions, is that they seem to operate with a unique level of discipline and focus. They tend to prioritize the things that actually matter. They have business plans that are grounded in financial success, as opposed to high-level abstract visions. They care deeply about the numbers and their bottom line impact. When you have a CEO who understands how to read an income statement and balance sheet, you probably avoid some of the mistakes that first time founders tend to make (like overspending on projects that never really should have been allocated budget).
And so we wanted to know—what would an experienced, disciplined founder like John do as he architected his company culture? What would the values be? What would we learn if we went behind-the-scenes with the company?
If you are thinking of joining a startup, or perhaps even building your own, consider the lessons we learned from Campfire to be great “role model answers” as you try and figure out what’s important for your own situation. (And if you’re looking to meet a co-founder, be sure to check out Friends of Next Play)
1. Be calm, yet confident
When you picture a startup, you may imagine chaos. Something you would see in the movie The Social Network. People talking very quickly and typing like crazy. But you will not find that sort of chaos at Campfire (or at many other actually successful companies). Yes the days may be hectic but in reality—effective people stay focused on the long-term.
“Our leadership excels at maintaining a calm composed demeanor that instills confidence and provides stability across our day-to-day work.”
This allows the team to focus on what’s important and not get distracted by the trend of the day in the markets. We have said it before but worth saying again many startups get sucked into things that do not really matter. And if you’re taking on a very complicated ambitious project, you frankly do not have enough time to waste on the distractions. You have to stay locked in your vision.
2. Transparent accountability
The team at Campfire has made the intentional decision to bias towards sharing more internally rather than less. They want everyone on the team to be empowered with information so they can do their jobs as best as possible.
“We have a weekly company standup which sheds light on the bigger picture and what we're working on as a whole.”
“I admire Nim, Campfire’s first AE. From day one, he was open and encouraging rather than gatekeeping his success—a rarity in sales environments where peers are often seen as competition. He genuinely approaches competition as a way to make each other better, and even four weeks in, he’s always willing to lend a helping hand.”
Transparency alone is really just one piece of the puzzle. The other is accountability. Taking ownership for your work.
“We maintain openness in our operations and take responsibility for our actions and decisions.”
At some companies you find silos and walls everywhere you look. People playing the blame game.
At Campfire, there’s a real effort made to be open about the wins and losses going on across the company—that way people can really own their work and make decisions more autonomously.
3. Constructive collaboration
Transparency alone can be daunting. But when it’s met with constructive collaboration, you’ll find people positively reinforced and open to sharing more with one another.
Collaboration does not simply mean scheduling tons of meetings. Or spending lots of time together. Collaboration in this context means getting stuff done by coordinating across people.
“We want to achieve “Collaborative Excellence - where we foster teamwork and shared accountability to achieve outstanding results.””
“I am constantly collaborating cross functionally with sales, product & engineering to move projects forward.”
This happens at all levels of the company:
“On the engineering side we do not have many meetings. When we do they are very collaborative and open. No one's mincing their words. We're all working together for our common goal.”
“Leadership is great at communication and delegation. And motivating their individual teams with positive reinforcement and constructive feedback.”
4. Build build build
There’s a big focus on velocity and getting things done.
“We like exceptional executors - people who gets shit done. We're super lean, which means every person's output is critical to our company's success. It's a huge motivator, for me personally.”
“One of our core company values is quality with velocity -> this takes a part in everything we do.”
“Build build build. Our product velocity is a big source of pride for the company. So shipping fast and often is most of what I do. I also do a lot of bug bashing and bug investigation in my day to day. Our user's product experience and getting them into a good state is imperative to the company, and frequently part of my day to day.”
Again, not in an erratic way. But in a steady, focused way.
“The vibe at the company feels quick but calm. There is a lot to learn and a constant flow of new events in the pipeline. Everyone is working with purpose but banter breaks up the day and the team energy is always positive.”
It probably helps that the entire Campfire team works in the office.
“Being five days a week in person, I think it is incredibly important to have a great company culture. I enjoy coming into the office everyday interacting with not just my team, but people on the engineering or customer support side.”
This leaves ample opportunity for hanging out and getting to know one another:
“Whether we go to the Giants game after work, happy hour, or our "Funday Friday" activity, there's always something to look forward to.”
“The most memorable part of the interview process was during my in-person office visit. It was 100 degrees that day and I got ice cream with the entire Campfire team. I was able to meet everyone and get a feel of the great team culture prior to joining.”
“I think we also try to have our fun and keep things light, eat lunch together, do some fun events together etc.”
They also host a monthly poker tournament night.
If Campfire sounds like the type of place for you, they are hiring in SF for 12+ roles across customer success, sales, marketing, design, and product (apply here!).
And if you are looking for more interesting opportunities, be sure to check out Next Play.