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A Guide to Building a Tech Startup Financial Plan

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John Tailor
A Guide to Building a Tech Startup Financial Plan

Before taking the bull by the horn and start creating financial projections for your startup, you need to make sure that you’re doing everything right. Having a properly built financial plan is invaluable both if you’re looking for financing options and if you’re not seeking such assistance.

In the first case, your prospective lenders need to be convinced that your business will be profitable and provide them with a good return on investment. On the other hand, if you’re relying on your own funds, you need to know whether your plans and projections are realistic and whether your performance is falling short or surpassing the expectations.

What period should it cover?

One of the most common mistakes startups make is to budget only for year 1. In doing so, you’re preventing yourself to having a long-term vision for your company. If you extend your projection to cover three years, however, it’ll be a show of intent on your behalf, suggesting that you’re planning to grow.

 

What should you create first?

Start with a sales forecast. You can be much more detailed when it comes to your expectations during the first year and provide monthly estimates, while you can use quarterly sales for the following years. Your projection should show how many customers you expect or how many units you plan to sell and at what price.

Then move on to an expense budget, which should encompass both fixed (e.g. rent) and variable costs (e.g. salaries). You don’t necessarily need an extremely elaborate breakdown, but general figures are a must.

What documents constitute a company’s financial statement?

There are three basic documents: an income statement, a cash-flow statement and a balance sheet.

Income statement

This document contains projection of the money your company will generate by taking into account both the revenue and expenses. Your startup needs to have a monthly income statement for year 1 and quarterly statements for years 2 and 3. If you’re planning for more than three years, you can just create annual income statements.

Cash-flow statement

This is important because you need to know exactly how much money will flow into and out of your business within a certain period. When you draw a line after each period (e.g. one month, one year…), you’ll be able to see whether you’re generating a profit.

Balance sheet

This is the most comprehensive document related to your business, since it shows your overall finances, such as assets, liabilities and equity. You would need to have a balance sheet for each year of your financial projections.

Find your breakeven point

Each startup needs to be able to tell at what point it stops operating at a loss and starts making a profit. There’s no rule about the time it would take a new business to become profitable, since it depends heavily on the business model and industry. Make sure you are patient enough to give your business enough time to find its feet.

How do I project when I don’t have relevant data?

Creating financial projections without any data from previous years is quite challenging and many people don’t know how to do it. If you don’t have your own data and you haven’t worked in that particular industry, collect those about similar businesses and you should be good to go. If, on the other hand, you have experience in the field, you should have a good idea about realistic financial projections.

Professional assistance

When it comes to hiring professional assistance, make sure you consider only the trusted experts in the field. Whether you are looking for a seasoned tax accountant in Sydney or a marketing expert in some other part of the world, it’s important that they are familiar with your environment and your goals.

Resources

Since financial projections are usually written last, as a part of the business plan, you should have enough time to find relevant information that you need for accurate projections. You can now find many publicly available online publications and industry data that can help you create a sound business plan.

Finding a balance

It’s important that your projections are optimistic and enticing to prospective investors, but at the same time you should be unrealistically positive. As soon as your figures seem too good, everyone’s going to look at the whole idea with quite a lot of scrutiny.

As you can see, if you collect relevant information, interpret and present it in the right way, you’ll be able to create a financial plan that will not only help you guide your business, but it might also assist you with seeking funding to start it.

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John Tailor
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