Building an AI-Native ERP: Lessons from Campfire

The Case for an AI-Native ERP

John Glasgow argues that the ERP market, dominated by legacy incumbents like NetSuite, was ripe for disruption because existing tools failed to meet the needs of modern, high-growth tech companies. While incumbents offer broad, deep feature sets, they often suffer from outdated interfaces, clunky APIs, and a lack of automation for modern financial workflows. Campfire’s strategy was to build an AI-native platform that automates manual accounting and reporting, allowing finance teams to focus on strategic work rather than data entry.

Founder-Market Fit and The Wedge

Glasgow’s conviction came from a decade in corporate finance and experience as both a customer and partner to legacy ERP providers. He identified that tech companies were hitting a wall when outgrowing QuickBooks but finding NetSuite too cumbersome. Campfire’s wedge was not to be feature-complete immediately, but to solve specific, high-friction pain points—such as multi-entity accounting and complex approval workflows—that were critical for audit and investor reporting. By focusing narrowly on this segment, Campfire was able to displace established incumbents even in their early stages.

The Power of Product Velocity

Campfire’s rapid growth is attributed to extreme product velocity. By shipping daily and maintaining a tight feedback loop with customers, the team built trust with CFOs who were essentially making a venture-style bet on the startup’s longevity. Glasgow emphasizes that the speed of development served as a signal to customers that Campfire would be able to scale alongside their increasingly complex financial needs, preventing the common issue of customers outgrowing their ERP.

Founder-Led Sales as a Strategy

Despite the pressure to scale, Glasgow insists that founders should remain in the sales loop until they reach clear product-market fit. He personally handled all demos and sales during the company’s early stages, which allowed him to gather direct feedback and make immediate, informed adjustments to the product roadmap. He argues that offloading sales to agents or AEs too early can disconnect the founder from the core problems the product needs to solve.

Scaling and Long-Term Vision

Transitioning from a seed-stage startup to a Series B company required a fundamental shift in how Glasgow manages the business. While the early days were defined by pure, focused building, the current phase involves managing a team of over 100 and maintaining the rigor required for public market aspirations. Glasgow views Campfire as a long-term, durable company and emphasizes the importance of choosing investors who share that multi-decade horizon.