Cool. Counterpoint from the opposite side of the table.
I agree that modeling these factors, checking your assumptions, finding what factors your plan is most sensitive/responsive to, estimating realistic buffers, etc. is extremely useful, and even essential. And doing so at an early stage is very good.
However, as Eisenhower said: “In preparing for battle I have always found that plans are useless, but planning is indispensable.” Having been expected to write and present such plans /pitch decks as a key element of, or prerequisite to, the first fundraising meeting, I found it absurd.
It was obvious to me as I built the models and wrote the deck that it was pure fiction. It was merely a projection of the intersection of our vision, plan, and execution, and the economy, in the next X years.
We were basically being asked to produce a linear projection when the entire point is to generate non-linear results and returns. And whatever we produce is hugely sensitive to assumptions in the models.
How can selecting a single point out of that fiction even begin to be actually useful as a predictor, at least for anything but linear growth businesses?
PaulG highlighted this in his post just a few comments down [0].
So, I'd think it would instead be a great exercise to do with a candidate after the first few meetings, have them generate best-medium-worst case scenarios, and highlight the most sensitive factors - then discuss that, but not as an initial selection criteria.
What am I missing here?
[0] http://paulgraham.com/ace.html