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Startup Financial Modeling: What is a Financial Model? (2016)

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Re: Startup Financial Modeling: What is a Financial Model? (2016)

#21

Post by itslogotime »

hutch120 wrote: post #14
paulryanrogers wrote: post #2

> Google sheets is convenient for making changes and having multiple people editing, but sending an investor a model in Google sheets signals that you are not financially savvy. I do wonder how many of these 'signals' there are, and what weight they really carry for investors.

Yep, this is where I switched off. If the advice is to "look good" to investors based on the type of spreadsheet program you use you've got bigger problems.

Lol agree with this

Re: Startup Financial Modeling: What is a Financial Model? (2016)

#23

Post by ChicagoDave »

My late business attorney would have said the same thing. The act of building a business financial model includes questions about the specific business. You can have assumptions about expenses, but how you create revenue is likely highly unique. The balance between these items can only be constructed through conversations, not plugging numbers in a template.

Re: Startup Financial Modeling: What is a Financial Model? (2016)

#24

Post by harha »

paulryanrogers wrote: post #2

> Google sheets is convenient for making changes and having multiple people editing, but sending an investor a model in Google sheets signals that you are not financially savvy. I do wonder how many of these 'signals' there are, and what weight they really carry for investors.

If the business model is solid, I prefer the type of investors who look at the assumptions and not at the font the calculator uses.

It’s not rocket science, it’s adding up a bunch of imaginary cash flows, explaining where they might come from should be the important bit.

Re: Startup Financial Modeling: What is a Financial Model? (2016)

#25

Post by jd115 »

paulryanrogers wrote: post #2

> Google sheets is convenient for making changes and having multiple people editing, but sending an investor a model in Google sheets signals that you are not financially savvy. I do wonder how many of these 'signals' there are, and what weight they really carry for investors.

There's a bigger issue here, apart from the outdated advice.

It's just BAD advice to begin with.

What it signals is lack of tech savvy in the investors. It does not in any way shape or form signal any lack of financial savvy on the part of the founder.

If you're starting a tech company, do you REALLY want to work with an investor who can't open a cloud spreadsheet ffs?

Re: Startup Financial Modeling: What is a Financial Model? (2016)

#26

Post by beagle3 »

justiceforsaas wrote: post #4

Is it useful to have a startup financial model if you're still at the early stages? I've analyzed over 480 founder interviews (mostly for their acquisition channels [1]) and there's 1 adjective that defines their growth: "messy". They pitched a bunch of journalists, did a trial & error for 100s of ads on FB/Google, had search traffic after 6 months of trying (but 0 before that) and so on. There's a sub-headline in th…

The saying goes: "Plans are useless but Planning is invaluable" - and it goes well with "No business plan survives first contact with the customers" (which was adapted from IIRC Churchil's "No battle plan survives first contact with the enemy", even though customers shouldn't in general be regarded as enemies)

Re: Startup Financial Modeling: What is a Financial Model? (2016)

#27

Post by lharries »

davidedicillo wrote: post #11

It’s interesting to see the proliferation of tools focused on tackling these business needs. This post reminded me of http://usesummit.com which allows to create financial forecasting models

https://www.causal.app/financial-planning is another good one and has a bunch of starter templates

Re: Startup Financial Modeling: What is a Financial Model? (2016)

#28

Post by rorykoehler »

paulryanrogers wrote: post #2

> Google sheets is convenient for making changes and having multiple people editing, but sending an investor a model in Google sheets signals that you are not financially savvy. I do wonder how many of these 'signals' there are, and what weight they really carry for investors.

Google sheets has an xlsx export feature. One great trick for investors that should be focusing on the model instead of the app used to create it.

Re: Startup Financial Modeling: What is a Financial Model? (2016)

#30

Post by tasuki »

westurner wrote: post #22

https://www.causal.app/ has free business model templates: SaaS (Foresight), eCommerce ( https://foresight.is/ ), Startup Runway, Buy/Rent, Ads Calculator

The article explicitly, repeatedly says templates are a bad idea. If you disagree, it'd be interesting to see your reasoning, rather than links to free templates.
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