15 Tweets 8 reads Oct 04, 2022
5 KPIs that determine if your startup lives or dies:
Yet over 90% of Founders I've spoken to, couldn't provide these KPIs when asked on the spot.
Let's fix that.
The 5 KPIs are:
β€’ Burn
β€’ Runway
β€’ Growth Rate
β€’ Cash Requirement
β€’ Time to Profitability
β€’ What You Need To Calculate
These metrics are incredibly simple to calculate.
You only need 3 simple data points that you can easily get from your online banking (no CFOs required).
1. Incoming Cashflow (IC)
2. Outgoing Cashflow (OC)
3. Cash Balance
That’s it.
β€’ Burn Rate
Burn Rate = OC - IC
How much of your cash balance is the business consuming (burning) to stay operational.
β€’ Runway
Runway = Cash Balance / Burn Rate
How much time do you have before you run out of money.
β€’ Growth Rate
Growth Rate = (This Month IC - Previous Month IC) / Previous Month IC
How much is your revenue growing.
β€’ Time to Profitability
OC - [IC x (1+Growth Rate) ^ Time To Profitability]
How long will it take your startup to achieve profitability.
β€’ Cash Requirement
Cash Requirement = Cash Balance + Total IC To Profitability - Total OC To Profitability.
The amount of cash required to sustain your business till profitability.
Example:
This Month:
β€’ Incoming Cashflow = $1,100
β€’ Outgoing Cashflow = $10,100
β€’ Ending Cash Balance = $300,000
Previous Month:
β€’ Incoming Cashflow = $1,000
β€’ Outgoing Cashflow = $10,100
Burn = $10,100 - $1,100 = $9,000 per month
Runway = $300,000 / $9,000 = 33 months = 2.8 years
Growth Rate = ($1,100 - $1,000)/$1,000 = 10% per month
Then we enter the numbers into this calculator:
growth.tlb.org
And you get this fancy chart.
Results:
βœ”οΈ You will achieve Profitability in about 1.9 years (less than your runway)
βœ”οΈYou require $140k in capital (you have $300k of cash)
This means you have all the cash resources you need to achieve be able to be self-sustaining.
No capital raise required.
βœ”οΈGood:
Runway > Time to Profitability
Cash Balance > Cash Requirement
❌ Not Good:
Runway < Time to Profitability
Cash Balance < Cash Requirement
(if this occurs, you need to inject more cash into the business)
TL;DR
5 KPIs that determine if your startup lives or dies:
β€’ Burn
β€’ Runway
β€’ Growth Rate
β€’ Cash Requirement
β€’ Time to Profitability
That's a wrap!
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