Capital Questions with Lisa Martin

Go Fi8ure gets in and takes care of the grunty num­ber-crunch­ing, enabling busi­nesses to earn more money doing what they do best. With 25 years of fin­an­cial and account­ing exper­i­ence behind her, Lisa Mar­tin and her Cuba Street com­pany could be just what you’re look­ing for.

For a decent cuppa… Dix­on Street Deli does really nice Supreme cof­fee, as do the boys on the corner at Mem­ph­is Belle. I wouldn’t trek for ages in search of a cof­fee, so I’m lucky to have those places on my doorstep.

When I dine out… it’s usu­ally only on Cuba Street or Cour­tenay Place. Wherever it is, it’ll have to be steak. I totally love steak. I’ve always been a fan of Logan Brown and, inter­est­ingly enough, the Fly­ing Burrito Broth­ers right across the road.

My idea of cul­ture is… com­edy. I’ll head to things like Chop­per and 7 Days when they have shows down­stairs at the Opera House. I love Broad­way pro­duc­tions; I wish we had more of that here.

My most mem­or­able moments on the job… are assist­ing busi­nesses that have been defrauded. Often, they feel totally viol­ated after hav­ing someone in a pos­i­tion of trust take advant­age of them, so we help them rebuild and show them that not every­one is awful. It’s not exactly pos­it­ive, but it still sur­prises me how low people can go. There are some really good people out there and some really bad people. If you’ve had a bad time, we can help.

Go Fi8ure is inspired by… Rod Drury and Richard Branson.

Every­one who is in busi­ness needs… someone who knows what they’re doing with money and accounts. You must have sound people and money man­age­ment, a strategy and the abil­ity to execute these things, oth­er­wise all you’ve done is build your­self a job. It doesn’t need to cost a bomb, but it will if you do it poorly for years.

Lots of people think… they’ll save them­selves some money and do it all them­selves. But did they go into busi­ness to be a book­keep­er? No, they’re prob­ably a really good archi­tect or pho­to­graph­er. It’s just a game, learn the rules. Let’s play it! It doesn’t need to cost a lot — let’s do it right from the start.