Building a Successful Business is a Marathon, Not a Sprint

Rose Report: Issue 37

RFS Startup “The world is full of people who have dreams of playing at Carnegie Hall, of running a marathon, and of owning their own business. The difference between the people who make it across the finish line and everyone else is one simple thing: an action plan.” John Tesh

In the running world, sprinting and marathon races are on opposite ends of the spectrum and require very different skills. While both are challenging and require intense training, a sprint focuses on the short term, a marathon focuses on the long run.

In many ways, starting a business is similar to training for a marathon. Before you set out on the path to the finish line, you need to have a plan. Like a runner preparing for a marathon, start-up and early stage businesses need to have a well thought out strategy on to how to obtain their long-term goals.

Know your fitness level.

When preparing for a marathon, the first step is to make sure you have the endurance you need to finish the race. Similarly, the first step to business success is knowing your company’s fitness level. Do you have the meaningful financial information that you need to make sound business decisions? Does your company meet compliance and tax regulations? Do you have a financial system that is scalable as your company grows? If you answered no to any of these questions, Rose Financial Solutions’ RFSStartup™ can improve your fitness level and set you on the path to business success.

Don’t let roadblocks get in your way.

Whether inclement weather or an injury, every runner experiences some type of roadblock during a marathon. The same is true for start-ups and early stage companies. From financial challenges during tight times, to compliance and tax issues, start-up companies often face hurdles that get in the way of their success. Through RFSStartup™, we remove roadblocks by giving you the financial confidence you need to make sound financial decisions. We’ve spent over 20 years building the processes and systems necessary to help nurture our early stage clients.

Marathon runners are known for offering encouragement to one another. As your trusted advisor, we’ll be there to help you succeed by providing meaningful financial information and guidance that is timely and accurate. We’ll analyze your company’s financial situation, map out a realistic and strategic budget, ensure compliance and set your company on a course to achieve growth and long-term goals, all while remaining a cost-effective alternative to internal staff. Through our advanced technology and cloud-based systems, we’ll ensure you have a cost-effective and scalable financial infrastructure.

Through RFSStartup™, you can set your sights on the finish line knowing you have a well thought out strategy on to how to obtain your long-term goals. Learn more about RFSStartup ™.

Share this article:

Visit Us On:

By Ted Rose September 3, 2026
Issue 136 - ROSE Insights: Building a More Resilient Finance Function
By Ted Rose September 2, 2026
By TED ROSE , ROSE FINANCIAL SOLUTIONS
By Ted Rose September 1, 2026
Single-source approach brings contract administration, project controls and billing, indirect rate management, and DCAA/GovCon audit readiness under one operating model NORTH BETHESDA, MD — September 1, 2026 — ROSE Financial Solutions (“ROSE”) today announced the launch of its GovCon Financial Advisory solution , an integrated offering designed to help government contractors manage critical financial and contract administration functions as they grow. The solution brings contract administration, project controls and billing, indirect rate management, and DCAA/GovCon audit readiness under one relationship, backed by 30 years of GovCon experience and supported by the company's Easby platform. ROSE will demonstrate how government contractors can evaluate their financial readiness during its September 18 webinar, “ Are You Ready for Your Next Government Contract? ” The session will feature Ted Rose, Kimberly Kuchman, and Wally Angel and will explore the financial and operational capabilities contractors should evaluate as they prepare for larger and more complex government contracts. In government contracting, compliance is not a business preference. It is a condition of holding the contract. Indirect rate management, DCAA-compliant timekeeping, incurred cost submissions, and audit readiness are the price of doing the work. Yet in most contractors, the functions that carry that compliance live in separate hands. Contract administration sits with one person, project controls and billing with another, the accounting system with a third. The cost of that fragmentation is rarely the software. It is the gaps between the pieces: the reconciliation work, the indirect rate surprises, the audit scramble when the pieces do not line up. ROSE now closes those gaps with one source. The GovCon Financial Advisory solution includes: Contract administration Project controls and billing Indirect rate management and modeling DCAA/GovCon audit readiness All of it is supported by Easby , ROSE's enterprise-grade, AI-enabled platform. Easby is an agentic AI control layer that sits above your accounting system and enforces the workflows that keep a GovCon compliant and scalable. It integrates with the accounting systems GovCon finance teams already run, including QuickBooks Online, PROCAS, Unanet, and Deltek Costpoint. Your accounting software remains your system of record. Easby has followed a 20-year path of proven automation: rules-based workflow since 2005, machine learning since 2014, generative AI in 2025, and agentic AI in 2026 , added to workflows that already work rather than built from scratch. The solution is designed to meet a contractor where it is, from a company's first federal contract through significant scale. It produces structured financial intelligence and improves financial infrastructure maturity as the business grows, at 30 to 60 percent less cost than building the same capability internally. "In government contracting, compliance is not a project you finish. It is a posture you operate in," said Ted Rose, Founder and CEO of ROSE Financial Solutions. "For 30 years our GovCon clients haven’t worried about failing an audit, and that record comes from infrastructure, not luck. What we are giving contractors now is a single source for work that used to be spread across separate people, separate tools, and separate budget line. That is how you scale a GovCon without your finance function becoming the constraint that slows you down." About ROSE Financial Solutions ROSE Financial Solutions is a Finance as a Service (FaaS) firm that builds and operates financial infrastructure for growing organizations, including founder-led companies, government contractors, nonprofits, and project-based professional services firms. ROSE's proprietary platform, Easby, is an agentic AI operating and intelligence layer built on Appian. Learn more at rosefinancial.com .
More Posts