About

I really love working with entrepreneurs. Their dedication, ambition, and big dreams are what inspire me. For the last 12 years, I have worked with company founders, helping them build their dream companies. During this time I have acquired enormous experience and valuable lessons.

People I have worked with praise me for being result oriented, efficient, and straight to the point. I value clear and honest communication. I strongly believe that discussion is one of the best frameworks to solve most problems.

I can best help you with:

Product and business review – a deep dive into your company financials and business data (profitability analysis by product, segment, market, etc., working capital requirements, financing impact on overall profitability, and other) and suggestions for improvement.
Product profitability improvements – a thorough profitability analysis through customer lifetime value perspective and other related data (customer behaviour, customer journey, customer service data, pricing sensitivities, churn, LTV models, etc.) and concrete action steps how to improve.
Customer data analysis – finding out how customers behave, which cohorts bring the most and the least profit over lifetime, why customers leave – and based on that build loyalty programs, customer service strategy and other solutions.
Finance raising (investors or loan) – getting company in the best shape and marketable (reviewing processes, accounting and finances, product profitability) as well as preparing required materials and running the whole finance raising process.
Setting up business in new markets – finding the best financial and tax structure, setting up a legal entity in foreign market, finding business partners, and establishing operations.
Running a specific project – where you lack internal capacity to run a project I bring together a team of outsource specialists (developers, design, UX, etc.) and deliver a fully developed project.

Professional background

TWINO
COO and CFO

I joined TWINO as a CFO where I developed the finance function from the ground up. I built and maintained the financial projections models, and implemented various analytics which help track business on an everyday basis and allowed making good business decisions. As the company grew I scaled the Accounting & Finance function across many countries, implemented budget forecasting models and financial accounts consolidation across the countries where the company operated. I hired and managed the finance team, including local CFOs across international subsidiaries.
After 4 years in the company I was deeply involved in company building together with the founder, so I moved into the COO role. In this role, I managed and developed IT, Finance, and Customer service areas of the company, and I was responsible for business in 4 countries (Russia, Denmark, the Czech Republic, and Poland).

Alfa Finance
Restructuring leader and CFO

The founders hired me to restructure the company which was in severe financial distress and on the brink of bankruptcy. I quickly identified root causes, came up with a restructuring plan, implemented new processes to turn around the company, applied necessary cost-cutting measures, and returned the company to profitability in 9 months' time.

Adaptive Media
COO and CFO

I worked together with the founders to reshape the company, improve existing processes and implement new ones to improve operational efficiency. I rebuilt the company's organizational structure to be in line with the new strategy and did an efficiency analysis on all business lines to identify the strategic priorities. As a result, the business was streamlined and a new strategy was introduced to put focus on the core business and discontinue non-core business.

Ernst & Young
Valuations and Financial Due Diligence

In the leading financial advisory services company in the Baltic states, I was managing company valuation, financial due diligence, and M&A projects for large local and international clients. I built numerous financial valuation and cash flow forecast models for these clients and participated in various M&A processes. I spent almost a year in the Stockholm office where I worked on projects for a leading Swedish aluminum materials producer, a major telecom company, and a leading Swedish financing player.

Services

I can best help you with the following aspects of your company:

Outsourced COO

I come on board as an independent member of the management team
We work together for 3-6 months
We agree on certain goals or KPIs that need to be reached during our cooperation and work together as a team to reach those goals
I spend 4-8 hours per week with the team

Price: from 1 450 EUR per month

Crisis management & restructuring

Having been through a number of company crises, I can help you survive yours
We sit together, create an action plan, cost-cutting measures if necessary, set clear targets
We have regular follow-up meetings where we check the progress and make adjustments if necessary

Price: from 890 EUR

Efficiency audit

You feel something is not right - either costs are too high or revenue too low. Feels like your company should be doing better but it just isn't
I do a thorough review of your product and pricing structure, cost structure, and efficiency
I offer to you a set of actions that would improve the profitability and efficiency of your company

Price: 70 EUR per hour

Projects

Here are some examples of projects I have worked on:

Fintech industry

I performed a complete review of the business model, cost structure, and business processes and implemented a restructuring plan which resulted in the company becoming profitable in 6 months period.

Affiliate marketing industry

I reviewed company's business plan, product lines, and business processes, and built a financial projection model. Based on these procedures we performed a restructuring which resulted in significant efficiency improvements.

Fintech industry

Worked hand in hand with the founder to build one of the largest fintech players in Europe. I developed and implemented short and medium-term business strategies, did a regular review of business processes, pricing, and profitability models, and came up with improvements that had a positive impact on the company.

What People Say About Me

"We've partnered with Niklavs on multiple business research projects, leveraging his experience and skills to analyze user data and patterns to tackle our business challenges.
Each time, Niklavs delivered valuable recommendations that enabled us to improve our business. His dedication to understanding our challenges and delivering actionable insights has no match.”

Māris Daģis
CEO of Sellfy

"Over the years Niklavs has gathered a treasure-trove of knowledge. No matter what is the business-related subject he most likely has either done it himself or has been close to people who have done it. And with this informational toolbox, Niklavs helped me through a lot of challenging moments so I have no doubt that he can do the same for other first-time founders."

Kaspars Kripēns
Co-founder of Adaptive Media

Contact

Email: niklavs.macko@gmail.com

Tel: +371 29221411

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