{"version":1,"type":"rich","provider_name":"Libsyn","provider_url":"https:\/\/www.libsyn.com","height":90,"width":600,"title":"Selling Check for $400M, Now Building a $1.5M ARR AI Startup","description":"How do you build a $1.5 million ARR enterprise AI platform after previously selling a fintech startup for nearly $400 million? Ahikam Kaufman is the CEO of SafeBooks AI, an agentic data automation platform for the office of the CFO. You\u2019ll learn: - How to charge $125,000 ACVs by pricing against the cost of an accounting headcount. - Why the company raised a $15 million seed round just to build their initial data architecture. - How they landed a $300,000 engagement in their first year of going to market. - The exact strategy Ahikam used to distribute $25 million in retention bonuses during a past acquisition. - Why building a proprietary graph database is the only way to prevent AI hallucinations in finance. - How SafeBooks scaled to 15 paying enterprise customers. - The economics of automating the quote-to-cash process across disparate CRMs and ERPs. - How to manage founder dilution while building a venture-backed tech company. Ahikam is a veteran fintech executive who previously co-founded Check, which he scaled and sold to Intuit in 2014 for nearly $400 million, creating over 10 millionaires in the process. Watch this episode on YouTube: https:\/\/youtu.be\/JQA3RX9PsHw Connect with Ahikam:&amp;nbsp; https:\/\/safebooks.ai\/ Connect with Nathan:&amp;nbsp; https:\/\/founderpath.com\/ ","author_name":"SaaS Interviews with CEOs, Startups, Founders","author_url":"http:\/\/getlatka.com","html":"<iframe title=\"Libsyn Player\" style=\"border: none\" src=\"\/\/html5-player.libsyn.com\/embed\/episode\/id\/41151715\/height\/90\/theme\/custom\/thumbnail\/yes\/direction\/forward\/render-playlist\/no\/custom-color\/88AA3C\/\" height=\"90\" width=\"600\" scrolling=\"no\"  allowfullscreen webkitallowfullscreen mozallowfullscreen oallowfullscreen msallowfullscreen><\/iframe>","thumbnail_url":"https:\/\/assets.libsyn.com\/secure\/item\/41151715"}