Douglas Higgins

Fractional CFO for collision repair shops. Know your numbers, build what's next.

[Douglas Higgins @collisionadv]

I'm Doug Higgins. I run Collision Advisory.

10+ years in Fortune 100 finance, plus two years running a collision shop. Now a fractional CFO for collision repair operators.

Know your numbers, build what's next.

[Douglas Higgins @collisionadv]

@v0xium Find a different way to add value

[Douglas Higgins @collisionadv]

@anah_sahh yes, materially

[Douglas Higgins @collisionadv]

@chrismaconi @bot This has happened to me several times in the last few days. They seem to go down, and then wake back up hours later. I'm assuming there's work going on behind the scenes.

[Douglas Higgins @collisionadv]

@kirtandopamine Disagree. You just optimized for the wrong thing. "...fancy Google job, campus, free food, real innovations." You should have optimized for adding value in some way. Your expectations, and reality, were mis-aligned. Align them, and you will find the path.

[Douglas Higgins @collisionadv]

@_simonsmith Us @linear instead

[Douglas Higgins @collisionadv]

@mikeredmer @cursor_ai @grok Biggest unlock for me has been projects, agreed. What I really like about them is, you can have them subscribe to Linear "projects." And so any change/creation of linear issues that project subscribes to, will "wake" the project, and it will start working on that issue.

[Douglas Higgins @collisionadv]

Is anybody using @cursor_ai for “knowledge work?” I’ve been trying my best last 8 weeks, using mostly @grok 4.6. I still find myself coming back to Opus/Fable and Sol/Astra for comfort. I don’t trust it yet.

[Douglas Higgins @collisionadv]

Only issue I seem to be having, and this may be specific to Amex. I have a virtual card for my business, and when I attempt to use that virtual card for this, Link says it authorizes it, but then it fails on the back end. As soon as I switch to a physical card, it works fine. Could be user error, or something to do with the card type since it's a "virtual" card." Kind of defeats the purpose to use a virtual card anyway, through Link, since you're hiding my actual card details behind your wall and effectively transferring the value over to the Visa, and then executing from there.

Other than that, honestly I think you've got a nice process here.

[Douglas Higgins @collisionadv]

Going on vacation next month. I had my executive assistant @bot (“atlas”) pull up the reservation, research beach chair and umbrella companies nearby. And within 30min it had made 3 calls, and booked us online for the week using the @link card on file. We live in the future.

[Douglas Higgins @collisionadv]

@elshayib_ Man, I've learned this the hard way in the last 6 months. It's better to move quickly through one or two projects at a time, than it is to switch between 6 and keep forgetting where you're at. Great post, totally agree. I'm about to downsize my computer screen for this reason.

[Douglas Higgins @collisionadv]

@corbin_braun I COMPLETELY agree with this

[Douglas Higgins @collisionadv]

I'm finding the best way to use @bot, for me, is as an administrative layer. It surfaces issues for me across my client base, and then it creates a @linear "task" when it warrants real work. I've now set up a "project" (really a "client manager) inside of @cursor_ai, and the projects each "subscribe" to changes in Linear, and they "wake up" when my grok bot and I agree that a Linear issue should be created. As soon as something changes in Linear, Cursor starts working on it, inside the project. I go check on the work inside the lane and push it to the finish line.

Most of my work is too "deep" for @bot to handle, needs the dispatch to Cursor. I find that this setup allows me to keep the bot token usage manageable. And the heavy work goes into Cursor.

FWIW, my Cursor environment has CLI's for @claude, @ChatGPT, and for @grok build. And I've given the projects instructions to "dispatch" or review work through those CLI's for different types of deliverables.

I don't know if I'd call it a "factory," but it's certainly a delivery mechanism.

[Douglas Higgins @collisionadv]

Codex resets starting to piss me off. I used one of my banked resets on Friday, in anticipation of working on a project over the weekend. Total waste, because they came behind and reset everyone on Saturday, and pushed my weekly reset back to next weekend.

[Douglas Higgins @collisionadv]

@danhortondaily @gregisenberg Would be the first time in my life I've been accused of exaggerating, haha. Definitely doesn't need to be solo. I'm just trying to see how far I can push it solo...for now. Testing myself, and the systems. Systems keep getting better, and the leverage keeps increasing.

[Douglas Higgins @collisionadv]

@vineerpasam Yes, the problem is that I feel like when I do they always agree with me. Which makes me nervous, because I think, "Surely I'm missing something here, why aren't you pushing back on my logic?"

[Douglas Higgins @collisionadv]

@Jason I think you'll see fractionalized knowledge work win the same way. It's my current thesis, special focus on the trades. I've built $600K in ARR in 6 months in a couple of niche trade industries. Trust built through hyper specialization>generic, deliver via automation

[Douglas Higgins @collisionadv]

@big_duca "Humans aren't going anywhere, we just don't need as many of them." There, fixed it for you.

[Douglas Higgins @collisionadv]

@grok @cursor_ai What about finance and accounting type work @grok? I’m talking analyzing acquisition deals, controllership, bookkeeping, managing quickbooks via the intuit API. Things like that? What is your evidence for “plenty of people”?

[Douglas Higgins @collisionadv]

I think I’m starting to understand the association between the night owl, and the “coder.” I’ve always been an early to bed, early to rise guy. But with a newborn at home (our 4th), I’ve been staying up late working, building systems. It just feels different somehow, like I have the entire night ahead of me if I want it. When I get up early, I know I’m on the clock before the kids get up. Not the case at night.

Not sure it’s the healthiest thing, and I’m definitely not getting enough sleep, but I can see the appeal of it.

[Douglas Higgins @collisionadv]

@poteto Can @bot spin up a @cursor_ai cloud agent directly into a project?

[Douglas Higgins @collisionadv]

@gregisenberg $5-7k/mo fractional CFO engagements (that often turn into "automate the finance process for me"), I've stacked 12 of these in 6 months since launch and I'm probably at 40-50% capacity. Solo. Dig in, automate, press the button every month (basically), take phone calls.