How MAVI helped Filaments gain more strategic leverage and deliver excellence to their clients

Filaments co-founder Joel Johnson had seen firsthand the problems customers faced with other bookkeeping firms, outsourced accounting services, and fractional CFO practices: disconnected processes, lack of direct communication with accountants, and high turnover of accounting points of contact. He built Filaments to be different – a firm clients could genuinely trust with their financials, a partner that enabled companies to focus on what they were good at, knowing the accounting was in capable hands.

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Maintaining that standard meant hiring at an exceptional level. Joel had worked with MAVI during his time as EVP of Finance and Compliance at Suzy, a leading consumer insights platform. Having seen the quality of MAVI's talent network firsthand, it made sense to go back to the marketplace when building out the Filaments team.

When Joel reached out to MAVI, he knew what he was looking for: senior-level CPAs who could think critically about problems, work within US time zones for direct client communication, and deliver strong ROI without inflating the cost of Filaments' service.

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MAVI sent out multiple relevant profiles immediately, giving Joel the ability to evaluate candidates against specific client situations. "The profiles had a good summary of the person's experience, so I could get a sense for what their history has been."

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He scheduled discussions with everyone and was consistently impressed – by the candidates' preparation, and by the fact that a MAVI representative was present at each interview to ensure everything ran smoothly. It was a different experience from other staffing approaches he'd tried.

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"I really enjoyed that interview and discovery process."

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Joel had previously worked with US-based temp staff and part-timers at Suzy. But the MAVI process was more deliberate – actively asking about role requirements, matching profiles to specific client situations, and facilitating interviews rather than pushing candidates forward and leaving evaluation entirely to him. "That upfront work helped a lot, rather than just pushing somebody in front of us."

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Filaments started with one MAVI Senior Accountant and has now expanded to three, each providing high-level accounting support across different client engagements. Joel described the quality as "significantly better" than domestic alternatives.

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"The MAVI Talents have definitely succeeded most of the quality that I've seen domestically."

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Beyond the work quality, Joel has appreciated how MAVI handles operational issues as they arise. When one MAVI Senior Accountant had connection problems, MAVI stepped in quickly to ensure work continued without Joel having to intervene.

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"As somebody trying to run the Filaments business, I feel very confident that you guys are supporting the MAVI team so that I don't have to jump in and firefight technical issues or access issues."

The three MAVI Senior Accountants now effectively serve as the entire accounting function for Filaments' clients.

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The first freed up 100% of Joel's attention from a key client that Filaments manages working capital for very tightly. He had previously handled all the work associated with this client himself. The MAVI Senior Accountant is now directly integrated into their workflows, owning everything from collections to forecasting – including a complex cash forecasting file she took on and has kept current on an ongoing basis.

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"Her impact is directly felt in the fact that we can deliver nearly constant visibility into their cash balance, their cash runway, their working capital management almost every single day – which is not something that they had before they started working with us."

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The second MAVI Senior Accountant fully took over the accounting function of a client with a complex manual invoicing process, ingesting the entire universe of invoicing portals, purchase orders, and points of contact. She also trained the third MAVI Talent when she came on board. "It's enabled me to be very much hands-off, which I love."

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Joel is confident enough in the MAVI Talents' judgment to put them directly in contact with clients on Slack and email – freeing him to focus on business development and scaling Filaments.

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"The growth of Filaments generally speaks to how much they have freed up my time to focus on business development."

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The MAVI Senior Accountants have also contributed beyond their immediate scope, serving as sounding boards and partners in building new process narratives and testing ideas with Joel.

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The cost savings have been real – but for Joel, what stands out is that there was nothing to trade off to get them.

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"There was no sacrifice to achieve the cost savings. I think that I am getting higher quality work with people that I really enjoy communicating with and working with – which is an incredible value for me when I run Filaments."