Abby June Richards on Building The CPG CFO from Zero Clients to a Locked-In Niche

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Abby June Richards spent her childhood homeschooled as the oldest of six kids in South Texas, running an actual ledger system for a game of Fisher Price Little People before she ever touched a real balance sheet. Today she's the founder of The CPG CFO, a fractional CFO firm serving emerging, better-for-you and sustainable CPG brands. On this episode of Scrappy But Successful, Jack sits down with Abby to talk about watching her dad's business fail, quitting a stable corporate job with three kids at home, and building a firm from zero clients into a practice that stays locked into one niche on purpose.

From Homeschool Ledgers to CPG Cash Flow

Abby grew up homeschooled in Beeville, Texas, the oldest of six kids, and got an early education in entrepreneurship without realizing it. She graded her own homework, taught her siblings math for fun, and ran a full accounting system for the family's Little People toys, tracking everyone's bank account by hand. After college and a CPA license, she spent nearly seven years at RSM across audit, outsourced accounting, and technology implementation. Watching her father's engine-rebuilding business slowly fail, including its cash flow struggles and the toll it took on her family, shaped how she approaches financial risk with the founders she works with today.

Zero Clients, One LinkedIn Post a Day for 600 Days

When Abby decided to start The CPG CFO, she had no clients lined up and no safety net beyond a small side gig for cash flow. She posted on LinkedIn daily for the first 600 days of the business, putting herself out there as a fractional CFO for CPG founders before she had any proof it would work. Her first client came from a comment she'd left on an industry post: an $800 project for a founder launching a spiced ginger beer brand. She was never willing to take on non-CPG work to pad her pipeline, staying locked into her ideal client profile even through the moments of doubt that came with it.

The CASH FIGHT Framework

Abby's CASH FIGHT framework breaks CPG financial health into eight tracked areas: conversion cycle, alert level, shelf pricing, shipping and fulfillment, financing, inventory levels, gross margin, overhead, and trade spend and marketing. She uses a simple red or green scorecard with clients each month, flagging anything that's technically fine on paper but worth a second look. The framework is a free download on her website, and it reflects her broader approach: founders need someone who can see what the numbers aren't saying, not just someone who can do the math.

Branding, Boundaries, and Staying Locked to Her Niche

When Abby started her firm, she invested about $4,000 of her initial $10,000 in branding, insisting on a look that felt like a consumer brand rather than a traditional gray-and-blue accounting firm. That same intentionality shows up in how she runs the business: clients prepay for services, contracts stay flexible so no one is locked into a bad fit, and she's turned down plenty of easy revenue that didn't match her ideal client profile. It's the same instinct that had her running a ledger for a toy bank account as a kid: know the numbers, and don't be afraid to walk away from ones that don't work.

Connect with Abby:

• The CPG CFO: https://www.thecpgcfo.com

• Abby on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/abbyjuner/

• The CPG CFO on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thecpgcfo/

• The CPG CFO on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@TheCPGCFO

Connect with Jack:

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jack-tompkins/

• Consulting: https://www.pineapplecf.com

• AI Analyst Product: https://www.pineappleanalyst.ai/

• YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCalnj5yLU0ZH9y_tVl1J4ng

About Pineapple:

• Franchise Dashboards: https://pineapplecf.com/franchise-dashboards

• White-label Dashboards: https://pineapplecf.com/white-label-dashboards

• CFO Dashboards: https://pineapplecf.com/cfo-dashboards

• Fractional Analyst Services: https://pineapplecf.com/fractional-analyst

• Looker Studio Support and Training Services: https://pineapplecf.com/looker-studio-expertise

• QuickBooks Online Dashboard: https://pineapplecf.com/quickbooks-online-performance-dashboard

• Ecommerce Dashboards: https://pineapplecf.com/ecommerce-dashboards

• Business Coaching Practice Dashboards: https://pineapplecf.com/business-coaching-dashboards