They’re dreaming big at Spoonflower, to say the least.

Its revenue has sky-rocketed over the past three years; it has landed a big Boston investor and $25 million in cash – including money from Bull City Ventures. And now Durham-based Spoonflower is aiming even higher. The company wants a chief financial officer with – you guessed it – IPO experience. “Special bonuses” also are available for the right candidate. And they want someone local.

Spoonflower is interested in someone with Triangle connections:

“Local to the region, deep roots and commitment to this area, knowledge of the local players in the professional services with a strong local network”

The bonuses:

“Special bonus if you have disrupted an industry by disintermediating a distribution channel with a direct to consumer model.”

“Another Special Bonus if you have worked in: in Fashion, Home Decoration, textiles, printing, furniture, or some other highly relevant market.”

All-in-all, this is one intriguing job description.

WRAL TechWire reported in depth about Spoonflower’s fund-raising this week:

  • The why
  • How the money will be spent
  • Why Bull City invested

But Spoonflower’s founders (a pair of executives who bolted from Bob Young’s Lulu to launch the custom fabric e-commerce business) couldn;t be more blatant about where they expect to go in the job postings. The company is looking to hire 50 people – and a CFO with the right kind of experience (IPO and more) tops the list.

Other openings include:

  • Senior Web Designers
  • Print Workflow Specialist
  • Senior Maintenance Specialist
  • Part-Time Operations Staff
  • Staff Accountant

The CFO description is so interesting, WTW decided to print the whole thing.

Here are the specifics required for a CFO:

Chief Financial Officer

Spoonflower is currently seeking a Chief Financial Officer to join us in the exciting next phase of our journey.

The candidate we select will have experience in the following traditional CFO functional areas:

  • Leading strategic financial planning, budget process and feedback loops, and acting as the justiciar of internal financial discipline
  • Forecasting systems for operational margins, cash flows, and net profits, including early warning systems for at-risk goals
  • Legal – Comfort with basics of contract law, negotiations, and shepherding and hygiene of all legal agreements.
  • Risk Management, financial controls, financial and management accounting, period analysis and reporting, finance staff oversight.
  • Experience and/or solid exposure to the following particulars (areas in which you would not need training but rather could lead us with confidence) will make your candidacy more competitive:
  • Raising capital, both debt and equity, from VCs and private equity
  • Corporate development and all things acquisitions (negotiation of term sheets, due diligence)
  • Life as a public company: 10K and 10Q reporting, S-3 and S-4 filings, Sarbanes Oxley compliance and filing
  • Understanding of and experience with the IPO process, engaging underwriters, filings, prospectus, road show, lockups
  • The evaluation and hiring of auditors, legal, and tax advisors
  • Manufacturing (procurement, modeling, scheduling systems, JIT inventory, vendor scoring, capital equipment financing)
  • Experience with ERP systems implementation
  • Consolidation: Managed structuring, reporting, and financial consolidation of multiple legal entities
  • International: the creation and management of legal entities in multiple foreign countries, especially Europe. We have customers all over the world (10% of our sales are in Australia and New Zealand, and another 20% elsewhere outside the USA). We are profitable and we have big plans.
  • Foreign country work experience through an expatriate assignment
  • Real estate negotiation and build out across multiple sites including outside the U.S., ideally involving factories and land purchases
  • Startup experience: doing a lot with a little, proven comfort with teams that are small, scrappy, and self-reliant. No whiff of entitlement or inflexibility. Must be able to roll up sleeves and walk in the muck with the rest of us.
  • Consumer business, including an understanding of consumer pricing strategy, product lifecycle management, and working entirely without a direct sales force.

Special bonus if you have disrupted an industry by disintermediating a distribution channel with a direct to consumer model.

  • E-commerce experience – standards & metrics peculiar to this class of business, particularly around methods and costs of customer acquisition as it relates to customer lifetime value.
  • Web-savvy: Awareness of standard web business models. Comfort with valuation metrics of normal web businesses.  Credible experience when presenting to others in this space.
  • High technology: comfort with the heavy investments and uncertainty that is integral to creating products where technology is the primary differentiator of the business and driver of value.
  • Marketplace / User Generated Content / IP royalty models, including specifics of tax law as it relates to compensation, information disclosure, and withholding in the ‘sharing economy’ or the ‘user-generated content’ world

Another Special Bonus if you have worked in: in Fashion, Home Decoration, textiles, printing, furniture, or some other highly relevant market.

  • Local to the region, deep roots and commitment to this area, knowledge of the local players in the professional services with a strong local network
  • Ability to take The Long View: an understandable and compelling reason to single us out above other options. A compelling reason to cleave to our goals and take at least a 5 year view on this as a career step.
  • Good Fit: Sympathy for, understanding of, and fit with our market, our products, our employees, and our mission.
  • Being a Really Good fit is even better
  • Being an Outstanding fit is the best.

Preferred requirements for this position

  • Refer to the last three bullets of the previous section
  • 3 to 5 years of experience as a CFO with progressive responsibility experience for a company or division
  • Bachelors degree in accounting or business administration, or equivalent business experience. Master degree preferred
  • Certified Public Accountant (CPA) preferred
  • Experience managing a multinational company as controller or CFO desirable
  • Strong communication and presentation skills

Application Process

  • The application process for Spoonflower is unique, so please take the time to read the instructions below:
  • Cover letters are important! Please do not send just a resume.
  • Please prepare a cover letter that describes your particular qualifications, suitability for and interest in Spoonflower. Also please specify which position you are applying for.
  • Along with your cover letter and resume, you may also include links to any online material that you would like to share with. (ex. blog, portfolio of work, Etsy shop, etc.)

Are you qualified?

See more at: http://blog.spoonflower.com/jobs-at-spoonflower.html#sthash.OHNGYxca.dpuf)