About
A CFO should see trouble before it arrives.
I believe the signals are always in the numbers early, if someone is reading them. The Lean Finance is a fractional CFO practice for US beauty CPG brands, and I am Anton Voblikov, the CFO you work with directly.
- 5Businesses built
- 7Years advising founders
- 2Finance certifications
- 3Languages
Why “Lean”
- Focus on what moves the business.
- Act fast.
- Cut what does not pay its way.
I spent years doing finance for startups, where budgets are tiny, every dollar counts and everyone does five jobs at once. Operating lean is the only way a startup survives.
Growing beauty CPG brands live with the same pressure: cash tied up in stock, many channels, a small team, no finance department. So I bring the same discipline to them.
The name is also a nod to The Lean Startup by Eric Ries, whose principles I still work by.
My path
Five businesses, five lessons I use with every client.
Market research · K&V Consulting
Integrity. Even a small report deserves the highest quality, even if that means overdelivering. Clients used our research to find partners and budget their way through the 2008 crisis.
Proprietary trading · CME futures and options
Risk. See it early, size it, and act before it hits. Today I do the same with inventory, cash and debt.
Consumer products · Puppy Socks
Perspective. A small CPG side business: custom socks printed with your pet’s face. Small, but it put me on the founder’s side of a consumer brand.
Startup finance · FINBIRD, 2019 to 2024
Pace and proof. We built financial models, prepared data rooms and helped seed and Series A startups raise funds, measuring everything until the numbers showed it worked.
Fractional CFO · The Lean Finance, since 2024
Today. All of the above, applied to US beauty CPG brands.
See how it works
Why beauty CPG
Every partner has its own terms. You have one bank balance.
Some of my startup clients turned out to be beauty brands, and I saw how complex the industry is: retailers, distributors, marketplaces, agencies, 3PLs, lenders, each with its own terms, fees and timelines.
The founders I meet in this space are product and marketing led. That is a strength, and usually why the brand works. But it leaves finance behind, and that is where good brands get into trouble. That gap is exactly where I can help.
Diagram: your brand at the centre, connected to eight players. Money in, late: Your store (DTC), paid almost instantly; Marketplaces, fees and delayed payouts; Retailers, pay in 30 to 90 days; Distributors, take a margin. Money out, early: Agencies, retainers and ad spend; 3PLs, storage and fulfilment fees; Suppliers, paid upfront; Lenders, interest and repayments.
Working with me
Direct
You work with me, not a team you get passed between. I’m in your Slack, and I set up and organize a finance folder in your Google Drive.
Weekly
One clear report every Monday, and a call every week to decide what to do next. Anything off track is flagged before it grows.
Monthly
A month-end review of profitability, cash and your financial statements. We check progress against your quarterly targets and set next month’s.
Best fit
Multi-channel beauty CPG brands, roughly $5M to $20M in revenue, founder-led and growing faster than their finance function.
Beyond the numbers
I was born in Russia, finished high school in Cyprus, and moved to Vienna in 2003 to study Business Administration at the University of Vienna. I am endlessly curious: a few years ago I went back to university to study genetics and microbiology, and made it through all the lab work before The Lean Finance took over my time.
Certifications: FMVA (Financial Modeling and Valuation Analyst) and AFM (Advanced Financial Modeler).
Languages: English, German and Russian, all fluent.
Let’s see what this looks like for your brand.
30 minutes · no prep · no cost