CoPilot engages to help you get things done. We are experienced and pragmatic.
We help you get the right things done, which builds momentum. Momentum is measurable. We start by filtering from the many things you could do, into what you should do first. Doing the right things first builds a foundation for growth. This is what we do.
CoPilot offers supplemental, fractional, and full-time interim CEO, COO, CFO, and advisory services. We partner with visionary startups, recently funded or acquired businesses as they begin their growth journey, business owners looking to grow through acquisition, Private Equity firms looking to optimize value, and SBIR and STTR contract award recipients.
Through proven approaches and experiences, CoPilot drives incremental recurring revenue, FP&A discipline, operational process, organizational change and technology integrations for sustainable growth and valuation optimization.
Our value is having you control your destiny but you always know we are there to guide you, doing the work alongside you and your team. To enable you through direct involvement, but mitigate the risks of doing something metaphorically dangerous by yourself.
Value Optimization
Strategic Growth. Proven ability to design and articulate the true vision, align resources to orchestrate the proper pace to the team’s expectations, and lead the evolution of the team’s execution towards desired results.
- Revitalized relationships with Board of Directors, Investors and 40+ LLC Members with detailed, data driven communication using regular scheduled events, documentation and recorded meetings.
- Designed, negotiated and implemented multi-teired primary partnership reseller agreement.
- Developed and negotiated agreements with United Way, BigBrothers/Big Sisters, Boys & Girls Clubs.
FP&A Discipline
Financial Leader. Build, manage and optimize complete FP&A function, budgeting, cost optimization and revenue growth. Prioritization of actions towards sustainable, measurable results to optimize valuation.
- Lead design, setup and implementation of financial analysis and modeling to support business decisions.
- Upgraded financial department in alignment with company strategic initiatives and metric driven scorecards.
- Built and implemented budget, forecast and actual analysis methodology to adapt future cash flow and decision making.
- Built FP&A methods and scorecards to measure near real time rolling performance in sales, partnerships and operations.
- Established fiduciary responsibilities and metrics throughout multiple divisions.
Sales Operations
Sales Operations. Expert at leveraging data-driven process and metric-driven operational expertise in system setup, reporting, and analysis to decrease days to close, increase closure rate, and maximize deal value.
- Defined measurable sales operations to include data centric criteria, decreasing days to close by 20%, increasing closing percent to 80% and added 12% to size of deal revenue.
- 120% increase in government sales opportunities across 60+ department of defense departments and military units.
- Defined measurable sales operations to include data centric criteria, measuring days to close, reducing within six months from 82 days, to 61 days, to a consistent 33 days.
Systems Integration
Systems Integrator. Evaluate, plan, and consolidate disconnected, siloed and manual technical systems into SOP-driven usage, process, and reporting that delivers an outcome of efficient, consistent use and effective data quality.
- Built and deployed content publishing platform to 7,800 Charter Schools impacting 3.7 million students nationwide.
- Technology transformation of website and operations process to sync up multiple senior level groups.
Operations Consulting
Operations Expert. Consistent record of driving the right improvements via process improvement utilizing data-based decisions that build a long-term foundation for operating profit growth and productivity.
- Developed industry-wide best processes and procedures into a repeatable, measurable standard of excellence.
- Deployed scorecards for operations, reducing admin time by 12% and increasing employee investment by 15%.
- Collaborated with C Suite, external agencies and department directors to prioritize actions and leverage resources.
- Decreased scope creep by 62% by implementing a pitch, promise, proposal and performance communication model.
M&A Integration
M&A Specialist. In depth experience in deal sourcing, multi-department on-site due diligence, deal structure, negotiation and post deal integration of systems, process and organizational structures.
- Led due diligence and post-sale integrations in multiple acquisitions in excess of $100M.
- Integrated multiple financial systems and methods, sales operations alignment, and customer service departments.
- Tax Strategies to offset $2M+ in tax liabilities for both CAPX and OPX one-time expenses.
- Evaluated vertical acquisition of partners and horizontal acquisition of additional environmental strategies.
Government Contracts
Government Contract Specialist. Experience strategic effort to find, filter, and identify government contracts in alignment with company skills. Preparation and documentation of proposals and submissions utilizing various government templates and systems. Tactical execution of contract deliverables and administration of procedural signoff and invoicing.
- Executed multiple Federal defense contracts, collaborating with internal and external partners conducting human trials.
- Built and delivered DCAA Government Accounting Compliance / 3-Year Audit and Accounting controls.
- 100% approval and on-time delivery of multiple milestones.
Executive Leadership
Trusted Partner. Patient and detailed to understand the needs and expected outcomes so that each stakeholder, whether a company, group or individual person can benefit by working together on being effective and efficient in the use of often scarce resources.
Team Enhancement. Diverse, focused efforts to combine passion, skills, and priorities to ignite employee engagement via a personal connection that enables a group of people to achieve what no individual could alone.
- Won a top spot in South Carolina’s Best Places to Work in 2022, 2020, 2019, and 2018 by the South Carolina Chamber of Commerce.
Services – Angel Investor Partner
Define an Acquisition Plan
Growing a company via acquisition must be evaluated against using the same resource (time & money) to grow it organically. Both have their pros and cons, or maybe a dual strategy makes sense. Creating a plan to grow what you already do (scale) or adding services/products to your offering you don’t currently provide (scope).
Find, Filter and Approach
Prospects will come from internal and external sources. Having a specific process and pre-defined roles to evaluate them sets the ‘tone’ for the rest of the relationship. A smooth, professional approach, creating simplicity out of the perception of complexity will establish you and your company as a serious buyer, even if it’s your first time.
Due Diligence
At this point, you have a formal agreement, in the form of an NDA and LOI. It’s an exciting time. Due Diligence is critical to validating assumptions, asking the right questions, defining the strengths and weaknesses. It is the buyer’s opportunity to completely understand what they are buying. There is no other opportunity to do this; You can never be thorough enough to both identify the value and set the acquisition up for success post-deal.
Architect the Proposal
No proposal gets created without knowing the value of the company. In addition to due diligence data, external market factors and recent comparable transactions drive the valuation. Get an external source to do it, they have more data than you, and now is the time to get your legal docs created. The proposal is just the starting point to define what the buyer is willing to pay and it starts the negotiation process.
Document, Negotiate, Close
It’s necessary to be formal at this stage. It’s also important to keep the deal simple. Be focused on being detailed in your research, valuation, deal terms, integration plans, not on building a ‘deal of the century’ that is going to be confusing and fail. This is the stage that should be easier, don’t make it harder.
Integrate, Integrate, Integrate
Integrating processes and systems is hard, but not the most important. Bringing together leaders from two companies into an organization, defining roles and goals, and having a unified, collaborative culture will make or break any deal, regardless of how the previous steps have gone, this is where a deal fails or succeeds. Success is defined by the results, not by the signatures on deal documents.
”Explain the value and justify the cost - People don’t mind paying; they just don’t like to overpay.
Chris MurraySelling with EASE
”You've got to think about big things while you're doing small things, so that all the small things go in the right direction.
Alvin TofflerAmerican writer, futurist, and businessman
”I have never cared what something costs; I care what it's worth.
Ari EmanuelTalent Agent
About Dave Armstrong
Human | Veteran | Educated | Experienced | Engaged
Overview
18+ years of C-Suite financial & operational leadership across multiple industries. Expertise in transformation, scaling, integrations and growth. Deep experience in collaborative problem solving and business transformation as the CFO. Consistent and calm leadership believing that a collaborative environment and culture is key to guide teams to seek out possibilities and work together to achieve goals.
Human
I’m a decorated combat veteran and a first-generation American. The difficult and dangerous path my grandparents took to get here motivates me to not waste this privilege. I value personal relationships. I find I approach most things by being creative but realistic, enthusiastic but disciplined, and optimistic about improvement or finding a solution to any problem.
My career started when I joined the military out of high school in 1986, the US Air Force, and during my enlistment I completed my bachelor’s degree. I served in war-time combat operations during the 1990-1991 Desert Storm, making lifelong friends along with establishing my core values that solidified then and continue to this day. I was a corporate employee for ten years from 1995 to 2005, I earned my MBA, then in 2005, I left my high-profile corporate role and turned my real passion of helping others grow their own business and create generational wealth.
My experience and results come from leading and mentoring teams. As a multifaceted C-level executive, I’ve invested my time and money into things that make a difference; healthcare, education, energy, etc. In addition to my investing, I’m an independent consultant working with companies in a CEO/COO/CFO role to plan and direct the strategy, execution and fiscal control systems.
My clients see me as a helping hand that adds to their value, doing real work and ultimately delivering results, together. I’ve been told I’m a calm collaborator even under the most intense situations; difficult problems that would have caused companies to fall apart moved forward with my facilitation.
Military Service
The United States Air Force – Electronics Engineer 1986 – 1995
Desert Shield/Storm Combat Operations – 1990 – 1991
1991 Maintenance Professional of the Year – Combat Operations
Southwest Asia Service Medal – 2 Bronze Stars – Defense of Saudi Arabia / Liberation and Defense of Kuwait
Education
MBA – University of Phoenix – 1995 – 1997
BS – Embry Riddle University – 1987 – 1991
Community Engagement
Board of Directors/Founder – Second First Chance – 501c3 – 2023 – Present
Philanthropist – Soldiers to Sidelines – 501c3 – 2023 – Present
Philanthropist – South Dakota Service Dogs – 501c3 – 2023 – Present
Senior Mentor & Spokesperson – Warrior Rising – 501c3 – 2021 – Present
Entrepreneur Instructor – Federal Correctional Institution – 2022 – 2023
College Adjunct Professor – Arapahoe Community College – 2022 – 2023
Business Teacher – STEM School MIT LaunchX / DECA Judge – 2019 – 2020
Event Speaker and Mentor – Galvanize / Denver Startup Week – 2017 – 2019
Director of Football Operations – Oley Valley Football – 2007 – 2009
Youth Athletic Coach – Football/Baseball/Volleyball/Softball/Basketball – 1993 – 2017
Our Work
CoPilot engages to help you get things done. This is not enough. We help you get the right things done, which builds momentum. Momentum is measurable. You start at zero and by doing the right things you build a foundation for growth. This is what we do. Below are those for which we have helped. Each one has a story of effort, adaptation, and success.
Our Experience
Consulting
- Proactor Energy
- Spartan Capital
- NetPositive
- Spry Squared
- WorthWhile
- 8ONE8
- Purple Rock Scissors
- Indaba
- Edgar Downloads
- ZaZaChat
- BigCyber
- 1109Bravo
- Salvage Option Systems
- OnPulse
- CPDN TV
- Executive Backstop
- Going Online Solutions
eCommerce
- CurbDiver
- Flipflopia
- SelfTaughtYou – v1
- SelfTaughtYou – v2 – Audio
- Mayflower – Etsy Before Etsy
- P2P Payments
- D&E Services
- Dollar DVD
- Dit4Dat – Facebook Store Creation
- Media X – Sharing Used Media
- Hey Neighbor
- LotterMe
- MixRup
Advertising / Marketing
- Nxt VR
- TargetNext
- Tapinko
- DACTYL
- It’s Easy to Post / Apply
- Apps Online
- Snail Buddy
- Shortie – Online Video
- My Job Robot
- TeleMarketMe
Non Profit
- DAV
- MANG
- The Mantis Foundation
- Be A bCorp
- 7 Billion Things
- Douglas County Counseling
- HelpMeHelpYou – HMHY
- FreeHand Goods
- South Dakota Service Dogs
- Resonator
- Pop Pop’s Projects
- YES I CAN Solutions
- Arapahoe Community College
- Colorado Federal Correctional Institution
- Warrior Rising
- A Second First Chance
OnLine Publishing
- In The Marbles
- Connect You Publishing
- CaKnow
- Bounce
- HR Performance
- CharterM
- EverythingKart
- LongStoryShorter – CrowdFiction
- LongStoryShorter – Publishing Services
- Dadvice
- Daily Discourse
Social Networking
- 1UP
- MindMesh – Education Social Network
- Who’s On The Move
- InstaPast
- KarmaCards
- HistorMe
Software Development (SCRUM)
- RX Anytime
- BWS – Bounce Web Services
- SubscribeAll
- EIEIOH
- TOYA – Private Free Speech
- Little Trains – A la carte computing
