4.4 | Strategic Finance for Executives (M&A + Valuation)

What’s the real cost of money in your business? And how do investors actually decide what a company is worth? In this episode, two AIs break down the core lessons from Finance for Executives — the book we’re using in my MBA course on Strategic Finance at IESE — plus my personal notes in order to translate them into practical tools for founders, e-commerce operators, agency owners, and freelancers across LATAM. We explore: • Cost of Capital (WACC): what it is, why it matters, and how it silently decides whether your business creates or destroys value • Debt vs. Equity: why equity is always more expensive, and how to think about financing your growth • Valuation Methods: multiples, DCF, and how investors decide what a company is “really” worth • Risk, growth and strategic finance: the frameworks behind IPOs, fundraising, M&A and long-term value creation Everything is explained through real examples from my own companies and from the industries I know best — Shopify brands, digital services, and solopreneurs who want to scale using smarter financial decisions. This podcast is my “smart notebook”: I upload my MBA notes, cases, and class readings, and the AIs act like strategic partners helping me apply the theory to real business problems in LATAM. If you want to understand finance without getting lost in jargon — and make better decisions as a founder — this episode is for you.