The Innovators & Investors Podcast

Hosted by FinStrat Management founder Kristian Marquez, this show interviews founders building venture-backed companies and the investors writing them checks, with a particular focus on B2B software and fintech. Marquez day job involves running fractional CFO services for early-stage startups, so he asks the kind of questions a finance leader would actually want answered: how the company thinks about burn, what metrics the board cares about this quarter, when the next raise is planned, and how the founding team balances growth against margin. Episodes are usually 25 to 35 minutes and move at a brisk pace. Guests range from seed-stage founders who just closed their first institutional round to GPs running funds that specialize in vertical SaaS or financial infrastructure. What makes the show worth following is its consistency. There is no flashy production, no celebrity guest hunting, just steady weekly conversations with people who are actively building or backing companies right now. For founders trying to understand what professional investors look for under the hood, and for VCs curious about how operators outside their portfolio approach the same problems, this podcast is a reliable weekly read on the early-stage market. The CFO lens is what really sets it apart from interview shows hosted by journalists or career investors.