As a startup founder, you have to become familiar with basic accounting concepts. In this article, we discuss how to categorize various cash expenses from your Income, or Profit & Loss, Statement properly. Not All Costs Are Cash Costs Not all costs are cash costs. You may wonder why you...

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Mistake #1: Inaccurate calculations of market size Many founders incorrectly calculate the size of their company’s addressable market. When figuring out your market size, you should: Differentiate between the U.S. and global market sizes or a market size of your home country and the global...

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For pre-revenue companies, forecasting demand is very challenging because there is no financial history. To overcome that problem, some startup founders use random number generation as a tool to “logically generate” demand for their product or service. In their minds, this strategy is their best...

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All startup founders must create financial projections for their companies at some point, especially as they embark on the fundraising journey. That is true regardless of them having the finance knowledge to do it correctly or their company having the financial history to make their job...

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Having reviewed hundreds of financial models across more than fifteen industries, I’ve identified five most common mistakes entrepreneurs make when creating their financials. In this article, we discuss each of these mistakes in more detail so that you can learn how to model your company...

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The difference between WACC, or Weighted Average Cost of Capital, and the investors’ return confuses many entrepreneurs, especially those with very little finance knowledge. Both are important valuation concepts and will definitely come up in your fundraising process. In this article, we will...

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If you are a founder in the process of creating financial projections for your pre-revenue company for the first time, most likely you have two thoughts. Thought # 1: “This is hard”, and Thought # 2: “This is futile because, without any data, I can only guess what my sales would be!” Well,...

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Cryptocurrencies, or new investment vehicles of startups using blockchain technology, have gotten a lot of publicity recently, especially with the rise and fall of Bitcoin, the first cryptocurrency. Just in 2018, $21.5B was raised via ICOs, or Initial Coin Offerings. If you want to learn what an...

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Many startup founders wonder whether they can use the funding needs of a comparable company as a guide to see how much money their company should raise. It seems like a good idea, but it is NOT! While comparables are very important and help you determine the exit, or the terminal, value of your...

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An accelerator is a school that helps entrepreneurs get their venture to the next stage. Most importantly, accelerators prepare founders for the Demo day where they can raise their next round of financing. These schools are most useful for founders with little startup experience or for foreign...

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