financial projections

Avoid these 5 Critical Mistakes in Startup Financials

By Tim Berry

What are the critical mistakes in startup financial projections? Here is my list of five critical mistakes. It comes from reviewing more than a hundred possible startups with either detailed projections or pitches and, of course, business plans. Good news at the bottom: these are much easier to fix than some more common startup problems... Read More »

financial projections

How Investors Look at Startup Forecasts

By Tim Berry

Investors look at startup forecasts for concepts, not accuracy. When investors look at your projections, they are looking not for just the numbers, but essential insight into the knowledge, experience, and goals of the founders. Important: you need to forecast to manage your business. Hard as it is to forecast, it’s much harder to run... Read More »

10 Common Mistakes with Startup Financial Projections

By Tim Berry

I was glad to be asked about common mistakes with financial projections. I read about 100 business plans a year for angel investment and business plan competitions. Most show unrealistic profitability. More people doing business plans should realize that most startups are unprofitable at the beginning; and that high growth correlates with losses, not profits.... Read More »

financial forecasting variance

Why Do We Need Financial Forecasts?

By Tim Berry

Business owners and managers do financial forecasting to enhance  management. Anticipate essential flows of money to manage them better. Forecasting is a necessary first step towards managing plan vs. actual results, which means course corrections. It’s like steering a business. A Quick Example Consider this simple illustration: You can’t identify changes in flow if you don’t... Read More »

What Do Business Plan Financials Look Like

By Tim Berry

People often ask: What do business plan financials look like? You can get away with a sales forecast, spending budget, and cash flow plan. That’s enough for actually running your startup. It’s the essential numbers in a lean business plan. If you want to do it right you take it further and present projected (also... Read More »

Startups and Business Owners Will Thank Me for Posting This Debits and Credits Video

By Tim Berry

Business owners, startup founders: Do you know debits and credits? If so, cool, you know why I’ve posting this here as my Friday video. And if not, do yourself a favor and stick with this post and this video for a few minutes. You’ll be glad you did. It’s 13 minutes. If you go through... Read More »

Business Plan Financials? Why Bother?

By Tim Berry

As I’m winding up my series of posts on standard business plan financials – this is the 20th since last month – I want to focus on why? Why bother to project your business plan financials ahead of time? Aren’t they going to be wrong anyhow? Aren’t they going to change? Some people will suggest... Read More »

Business Plan Financials: Starting Costs

By Tim Berry

It’s really important to have an idea of what you need before you start. Continuing with my series on standard business plan financials, startups need to project starting costs. Starting costs set up a starting balance, which is necessary to plan cash flow. And the starting costs are critical to determining whether a startup can bootstrap or... Read More »