For many founders, the precipitating experience to starting a company is merely a desire to solve a problem identified in a marketplace. But for Brian Rainey, it was working his way up the corporate ladder through accounting and finance. 

He went from CPA to CFO, all the while knowing it would eventually lead to spreading his wings and founding his own company. “My plan was always to get the corporate background and then apply that into a startup,” he says. Now that plan has come to fruition with his company, Gooten, which connects businesses with a global network of custom printers for fast, scalable on-demand print services.

In this edition of Founder’s Journey, Brian talks about how his experience as a numbers guy influences his decisions as a CEO—and he shares the single-most important advice he tells beginning founders.