When you're building a fast-growing food brand with products shipping internationally, long lead times, and institutional investors watching your every move, "close enough" forecasting isn't really forecasting. It's hope with a spreadsheet attached.
immi found this out the hard way.
The Problem With Outsourcing the Thing You Can't Afford to Get Wrong
immi reinvented instant ramen—better ingredients, bold flavors, a cult following. Since launching in 2021, the brand has grown fast. And with that growth came a financial planning challenge that co-founder Kevin Chanthasiriphan eventually couldn't solve alone.
For a while, he tried. Kevin handled all of immi's financial forecasting and modeling himself—a reality common to early-stage founders who are equal parts operator and CFO. But as the business scaled, the manual grind became unsustainable. Copying and pasting financials across spreadsheets, addressing reconciliations, adjusting the model's countless nuances: it was consuming days each month that Kevin couldn't afford to spend on data entry.
So immi outsourced to a CFO services firm. A logical next step—except it didn't go as planned.
The external team's modeling was more basic than what Kevin had built himself. The assumptions were unrefined. The methodology lacked the precision immi's business required. Actual vs. budget variance increased significantly after the transition. Months of time and money spent getting up to speed on a new model, for worse results than they'd had before.
It was the kind of experience that clarifies exactly what you actually need: not someone else managing your finance function, but the right tools to do it better yourself.
What immi Actually Needed
As Kevin evaluated options, three requirements came into focus.
First, precise forecasting for inventory management. immi's products ship internationally, meaning lead times are long and unforgiving. As the brand expanded into wholesale, inventory requirements became more stringent still. A miss in the forecast didn't just hurt margins—it meant letting customers down.
Second, a tighter feedback loop for reporting. After immi raised its Series A, they were dealing with institutional investors who had real reporting expectations. The informal approach of an early-stage brand wasn't going to cut it anymore.
Third, the ability to react quickly. immi prides itself on being capital efficient, and Kevin needed to be able to shorten end-of-period close and update cycles—to find out what happened and why, faster, so the business could adapt.
When Kevin heard that Drivepoint offered low-lift forecasting software built specifically for consumer brands like immi, he decided to give it a try.
Getting Up and Running—Without the Usual Implementation Nightmare
Switching financial platforms while simultaneously rebuilding your model is not a small ask. Kevin is candid about how valuable Drivepoint's white-glove service was during implementation. The team didn't just hand over software—they adapted the model to immi's processes.
In less than a month, everything was ready.
Three capabilities made the largest difference.
Accounting interactions that actually update historicals. Investors sometimes want access to immi's general ledger or specifics for historical periods—and that information can change if an old invoice gets processed late. With Drivepoint, updating historical data from the accounting platform takes a few clicks. No more manually copying and pasting thousands of rows of numbers, and no more anxiety about whether the numbers are actually right.
Cohort-level forecasting for eCommerce. Cohort analysis gives immi a much cleaner view of online customers, which translates directly to long-term forecast accuracy on the DTC side. Drivepoint has since added this same functionality for Amazon, giving immi the granular cohort insights they need across their full digital business. The result is better inventory planning and a clearer read on what customers actually want.
Online version control for model scenarios. Before Drivepoint, running a scenario meant copying a file, opening two Excel documents, and comparing them side by side—while hoping you could remember which version was current. When files get passed around and stored locally, no one knows where the source of truth lives. Drivepoint solved this by maintaining an always-current version in the cloud that the whole team can access.
As Kevin puts it: "Drivepoint always ensures that the data tied up with our accounting system is accurate. There's no manual copying and pasting. It's just way faster and way more accurate."
The Results
The numbers tell a clear story.
Kevin used to spend anywhere from 10 to 20 hours each month on data modeling and forecasting. Since partnering with Drivepoint, he spends zero time updating immi's historical model. He checks for any misclassified accounting expenses and moves on with his day.
Across the partnership, immi has saved 20 hours per month, reduced actual vs. budget variance by 50% through more accurate forecasting, and avoided approximately $150,000 in costs compared to alternatives like hiring an in-house CFO.
But the more meaningful shift isn't captured in a line item. It's what happens to a founder's headspace when the model is no longer a source of stress.
"Now, when month close happens, I'm not exhausted from accounting work. I'm ready to rock and roll and focus on making strategic decisions."
That's the version of finance that actually moves a business forward. Not a team buried in data reconciliation, but a founder who closes the books and immediately gets to work on what matters next.
immi is continuing to grow alongside Drivepoint—particularly excited about wholesale performance forecasting as the brand expands into new retail channels, and about the platform's expanding ability to ingest and analyze data across sources like Amazon, where pulling data has historically been a significant challenge.
The takeaway for any consumer brand still stitching together forecasts by hand: the manual approach doesn't just cost time. It costs accuracy, confidence, and the strategic clarity to make the decisions your business actually needs.
immi reinvented instant ramen with a focus on better, more nutritious ingredients and delicious flavors. Since launching in 2021, the brand has grown rapidly and now counts Naomi Osaka among its investors.
