Early-stage revenue assumptions are hard. You're estimating how fast people will buy something they may have never heard of. Expenses give you firmer ground. You know who's on payroll, what rent costs, and roughly what your hosting bill looks like each month. Getting these tight early gives you a clear view of your profit and how much cash you'll have. That certainty also makes your revenue assumptions easier to pressure test, since you'll know exactly what revenue needs to cover. Which expense surprised you most in your first year of running the business? #startupexpenses #budgeting #cashflow #financialmodeling #startupfinance

There's a cell somewhere in your financial model that could change how you spend next quarter. Probably a boring one, like gross margin by customer type or what a new hire costs against what they bring in. You haven't found it because the model only comes out when an investor asks for it. On Thursday, November 5 at 2 PM ET, our co-founder Logan Burchett is running a free live session on how to read your model for what it already knows about your business, and how to spot opportunities you can act on this month. Register here: hubs.li/Q04BdVBy0 #financialmodeling #startupfinance #founders #startupgrowth #fpanda

Throwing together a financial model the night before a pitch is not a strategy. If your numbers can't hold up to a single follow-up question, investors feel it. The founders who raise are the ones who've built a model they actually understand and can defend when it counts. We're partnering with Gust for a free live Q&A where Logan Burchett is going live to answer your questions directly. Show up on Oct 29th at 2:00 PM ET and you'll walk away with something useful. Save your seat here: hubs.li/Q04B5v6m0 #startupfinance #financialmodeling #earlystagefunding #angelinvesting

Missing a goal stings less when you can point to the exact step where things slipped. Our co-founder Logan Burchett walks through a diff analysis: compare what you planned against what happened at each stage, from leads to meetings to demos to closed deals. In his example, the gap showed up at the bottom of the funnel, which points to the demo or the product as the place to dig in. Run it every month for every channel, from Facebook ads to conferences. Over time your assumptions get tighter and your goals get more realistic, because they're built on what happened last month. Our Monthly Finance Playbook lays out a simple monthly routine for staying on top of your numbers: hubs.li/Q04zRyRw0 #salesfunnel #forecasting #monthlyreview #startupgrowth #kpis

Your investors are going to ask how you got to your number. Do you have a real answer? Not a gut feeling or a rough estimate based on what someone else raised, a model that shows your thinking, backs your assumptions, and tells the story of where your business is going. That's what separates the founders who close from the ones who keep getting "let's stay in touch." We're partnering with Gust for a free live Q&A where Logan Burchett & Ryan Nash is walking founders through financial modeling from the ground up. If you have an hour on Oct 29th at 2:00 PM ET, this one is worth showing up for. Register for free here: hubs.li/Q04B5v1Q0 #startupfinance #financialmodeling #earlystagefunding #founders

$3,000 was on the line Friday night at SF Tech Week. Gust, HubSpot for Startups, and Forecastr hosted a Flash Pitch Competition where 5 founders came to the stage for a chance to win the check. Congrats to our winner, Kate Harline, and thank you to everyone who got up and pitched. It's a lot harder than it looks from the couch! Thanks as well to the Gust and HubSpot for Startups teams for co-hosting!

Would your financial model hold up if someone opened it in front of a full room? Two founders found out on Friday as they walked through their models live. At our Financial Model Teardown with Gust, Ryan Nash (CEO of Gust) and our co-founders Steven Plappert and Logan Burchett showed exactly where an investor would start poking. Then they fixed it on screen. Big thanks to Ken Brownlee and Chris Lawes who volunteered! That takes some nerve with your own numbers. And thank you to Gust for co-hosting with us. #sftechweek #financialmodeling #fundraising #startups #forecastr

Last Thursday night in San Francisco, a room of founders pulled up a chair to hear how a $20M+ raise came together in a brutal market. Thank you to Ryan Nash, CEO of Gust, our co-founders Steven Plappert and Logan Burchett for taking the chairs and getting specific about what the raise looked like from the inside. If you were there, it was great to meet you! Swipe through for the night! #sftechweek #fundraising #founders #startups #forecastr

Put your pitch deck and your revenue breakdown side by side. Do they tell the same story? It's common to spend a big chunk of the deck on the customer segment that feels exciting, then find it barely moves revenue in the model. When 90% of your growth comes from one segment, that's where your time, budget, and slides should go. A quick exercise: list your customer segments and write the share of projected revenue next to each one. Anything you're pouring real energy into that sits in the single digits deserves a hard look. If your model doesn't break revenue out by segment yet, our free templates make that easy to set up: hubs.li/Q04zRyMh0 #pitchdeck #customersegments #revenuegrowth #startupstrategy #financialmodeling

Picture Shark Tank, except three comedians are riffing on your deck in real time and you still have to close. That's Pitch Roast Live, and it's coming to LA Tech Week on October 15! Four founders, three comedians, one VC, one winner. Nothing is scripted. Comedians and investor alike take their swings at the pitch and the numbers as they hear them, and the founders who do best are the ones who laugh first and fix it second. We've sponsored this show in three cities now and it has never once been boring. Bring a founder friend who needs the humbling. Grab a ticket: hubs.li/Q04y8ZsQ0 Thursday, October 15, 6 to 9 PM PT, Los Angeles. #latechweek #startups #comedy #founders #pitchnight

Diligence has a way of finding the one number you were hoping nobody would ask about. Usually it's something boring. Revenue that doesn't match between the deck and the books. Expenses categorized one way in QuickBooks and another way in the model. The business can be in great shape and still look disorganized on paper, and that makes an investor wonder what else hasn't been checked. A lot of it gets solved upstream, with the right tools set up long before you open a data room. We're getting into what that setup looks like with Gust on Thursday, October 15. Logan Burchett and Ryan Nash will cover which tools earn a place in your stack and where founders tend to overbuy. Register here: hubs.li/Q04yjRYx0 · Oct 15 at 2 PM ET #startups #duediligence #venturecapital #startupfinance #founderfinance

Every investor meeting you've ever taken was a single take. One shot at the question you didn't see coming, and the good answer only showed up ten minutes after the meeting ended. Pitch on Tap gives that question a retake button! Happy hour with VCs at LA Tech Week, then a booth where you pitch an AI persona of each investor. Redo it until it's the version you'd actually send, and that's the one they get. For founders raising in the next year, or anyone who wants to hear the hard question before it counts. Forecastr is co-hosting with Agora and Casuro. Save your spot: hubs.li/Q04yg8lr0 Tuesday, October 13, 5 to 6 PM PT, Los Angeles. #latechweek #venturecapital #startups #founders #fundraising

On October 8 at SF Tech Week, Forecastr's CEO Steven Plappert is telling the whole story of how he raised $20m+ in a fireside chat with Ryan Nash from Gust. Five rounds, the calendar structure that kept investors moving, the momentum tricks that worked, and the ones that didn't. Logan Burchett joins to cover the other half of the job: keeping the business running while you're out raising. If you're raising now or planning to in the next year, this is the hour to show up for. Networking and food before and after. Grab a seat: hubs.li/Q04y8mdd0 Thursday, October 8, 5:00 PM PT, San Francisco. #sftechweek #startupfunding #founders #fundraising #saas

We're bringing the Financial Model Teardown to SF Tech Week! Brave founders will show their real financial models - the one they actually run the company on. Forecastr and Gust will give feedback from an investor's perspective. Then our Co-founders Logan and Steven from Forecastr rebuild both models live on screen. Growth, revenue, the whole investor-ready set, from scratch, while you watch. Want yours on the table? Bring it. Want to sit at the back and take notes? Even better, that's most of the room. Friday, October 9, 2PM PT, San Francisco. Co-hosted with Gust. Grab your spot: hubs.li/Q04y8j2K0 #sftechweek #founders #financialmodeling #venturecapital #startups

Pitch Roast Live is back for LA Tech Week and we're sponsoring it again! Four founders get on stage and pitch. Three professional comedians tear the pitch apart. One VC gives the notes that actually sting. One founder walks off with the win, and everyone else walks off with material. It's the funniest room at Tech Week and, weirdly, some of the most honest feedback a founder will get all year. Comedians find the weak line in your story faster than any investor. Founders, apply to pitch. Everyone else, grab a ticket and come watch it happen to someone braver than you. Tickets and applications: hubs.li/Q04y8tKy0 Thursday, October 15, 6 to 9 PM PT, Los Angeles. #latechweek #pitchroast #founders #startups #venturecapital

Quick test: if an investor asked for your trailing 12-month burn by tomorrow morning, how many tools would you have to open? If the answer involves a bank export and a Slack message to your bookkeeper, you're in good company. It's also the kind of thing investors pick up on fast. On October 15 at 2 PM ET, Logan Burchett from our team and Ryan Nash from Gust are walking through the tools worth having across accounting, FP&A and investor relations, and how to connect them so your numbers come from one place. Fundraising is hard enough without hunting for your own data. Save your seat: hubs.li/Q04yjQ7h0 #startupfinance #fundraising #founders #fpanda #financestack