Modeling expected gross profit or contribution margin tells you whether revenue growth is economically valuable, not merely whether revenue is increasing.
Example Scenario: Your First 180 Days as a Founder to be Successful
This is an example scenario of what the first 180 days might look like for someone trying to build a startup in a fictional business as the founder of a recycling company that targets waste from different delivery services (Amazon and so forth). Mainly from multi-family apartment buildings, student housing, condos, and the like. I thought this ideas was interesting as some data shows 7 out of 10 cardboard boxes end up in the trash instead of recycled.
How Complex Should a Financial Model Be to Be Effective?
A financial model only needs to be as complex as the decision it supports. An effective model is not the one with the most tabs, formulas, or assumptions. It is the one that helps someone make a better decision with reasonable confidence.
From Concept to Company: The Stages of Business Growth
As a business concept comes to life, it usually passes through several turning points where the idea becomes more real, tested, and capable of growth.
How Long Does It Take to Build a Financial Model from Scratch?
It depends heavily on scope, but a useful benchmark is:
Types of Data Center Operating Models: From Colocation to GPU Cloud
The easiest way to think about data center operating models is as a stack. The operator can stop at the building layer, or keep moving upward into power, cooling, network, servers, GPUs, software, and managed compute.
Who Should Build the Financial Model? A Practical Guide for SMBs and Large Corporations
There is a difference, but it is less about the math and more about ownership, controls, review, and consequences of getting it wrong.
Financial Models and Reality: When the Map Matches the Territory
Financial modeling is a structured attempt to describe a messy real-world financial situation using assumptions, formulas, scenarios, and logic. It can be very useful, but it is never the same thing as reality. A good model is more like a map than the territory: it can help you navigate, but it leaves things out.
Local Supply and Demand: Self-storage Deal Analysis
A key concept is local supply-and-demand underwriting: before trusting the purchase price, cap rate, or projected returns, ask whether the facility’s trade area actually has enough unmet demand to support the rents and occupancy you are assuming.
Financial Modeling Concepts: Equipment Rental
Think of an equipment rental company as an asset-yield business: you buy or finance equipment, rent it out repeatedly, earn ancillary fees, maintain the fleet, and eventually sell used equipment. The best financial model is therefore not a simple “revenue grows X%” model. It should be a fleet model where revenue, costs, depreciation, capex, debt, and cash flow all flow from the equipment base.
Most Important Lever in Hotel Underwriting
The most important lever in hotel underwriting is RevPAR, but the most powerful sub-lever is usually ADR, not occupancy.
Why Founders Need Financial Models: Turning a Fundraising Guess Into a Growth Plan
Scenario: A founder is raising a seed round
Imagine a founder named Maya building a B2B SaaS company that helps small accounting firms automate client onboarding.
A Good Financial Model Enables Many Things
A financial model is a spreadsheet-based tool that helps you estimate how a business could perform financially under different assumptions. For a startup, it is especially useful because the future is uncertain and you need to understand how sales, costs, hiring, pricing, funding, and growth affect cash flow.
Three Primary Users of Startup Financial Models
So who uses financial models? and specifically ones made for startups? Let's see...
Financial Model Template for Scaling Any Crew-based Service Business
A fully integrated, 60-month financial and operating model for parking lot striping companies and other crew-based service businesses. It connects lead generation, job mix, staffing, equipment, working capital, financing, and overhead directly to monthly and annual financial statements, cash flow, and investor returns.
Customer Acquisition Theory - How Retention Patterns Vary Depending on Method of Acquisition
This is one for the SaaS people, but also relevant to any business with recurring revenue services. Note, you can enter data in various SaaS financial models to see how certain assumptions affect LTV and the bottom line. Let's discuss how the way a customer is acquired can result in different retention patterns.
Basics of Starting or Operating Your Own Trucking Company vs Starting a FedEx Fleet
Assuming U.S. operations, there are really three businesses to compare:
- Your own for-hire trucking company hauling freight for shippers and brokers.
- FedEx linehaul, using tractors to move FedEx-owned trailers between terminals.
- FedEx pickup and delivery, or P&D, using vans and step trucks for local package routes.
FedEx linehaul is the closest comparison to a traditional trucking company. FedEx P&D is closer to operating a large local delivery and staffing business.
Cash Flows and Securitization
An interesting aspect of modeling securitization deals is that the model is less about forecasting a single “correct” outcome and more about understanding how cash flows move through the structure under different stresses.
Financial Model Template for a Startup Aging-in-Place Home Service Business
This is an in-home safety business model template that can be used for financial planning. The core business involves making senior citizen homes safer so they can live alone longer. The primary revenue streams are initial one-time audit, retrofit, and ongoing services. The financial model below was built to handle initial startup and then scaled-up operations.
Utilizing Debt Refinancing Strategies in a Business Turnaround
In a business turnaround, fixing the company’s operations is only half the battle. The company may still have a serious debt problem: a loan coming due too soon, interest payments that consume too much cash, covenant violations, or a lender that no longer trusts the business. In that situation, management often tries to refinance the debt. This usually means using a new loan to pay off an existing loan, then operating under a new repayment schedule that gives the company more time and flexibility.
The role of leadership in business turnarounds: Are great CEOs really the reason companies recover?
I'm kind of in a turnaround myself these days. I'm not sure if it is AI or what but the last 2 months my business is down about 75%. Let's dive in...
Multifamily Investing Template Deep Dive: Let's Start with Rent Roll
A rent roll is one of the best places to analyze value-add potential because it shows the deal at the unit level, where the value-add plan actually happens.
A T12 tells you what the property produced historically. A broker pro forma tells you what someone hopes it can produce. The rent roll sits between those two: it shows who is paying what, for which unit, under which lease, and when that rent can realistically change.
Hotels Are Valued Differently Than Traditional Real Estate
Hotels are valued differently than most traditional real estate assets because they are both real estate investments and operating businesses similar to assisted living facilities. While properties like apartments / multifamily, office buildings, or retail centers are typically valued based on long-term lease income, hotels generate revenue one night at a time. This makes hotel valuation more dynamic, more operationally sensitive, and often more dependent on market conditions.
Maximizing Net Rental Income, Not Occupancy or Rent Amount
For many long-term landlords, the best risk-adjusted strategy is slightly below the absolute top of market, because it reduces vacancy, improves tenant selection, and lowers turnover.
Multifamily Modeling - How to Figure Out What Market Rents Should be for Underwriting Purposes
To calculate market rent, the core reasoning is: first define exactly what you are pricing, then compare it to the most similar rental evidence available.
Personal Wealth Builder Template
I normally don't do a ton of personal finance stuff as most of the work and clients I deal with are of the commercial nature. However, that doesn't mean my spreadsheet skills are lost on helping the individual. This is a great discipline and wealth building helper that gives anyone a savings and investment structure for the long term.
Financial Model Template for Loan Brokerage (or deal advisor)
I've done a few financial models for loan brokerage clients, and I've decided to build a public-facing custom version that I think fits the most types of scenarios and strategies. This includes three main types of loans, and the fourth channel is deal volume for investment banking / capital advisory strategies. They are similar but have some differences in logic that are relevant.
Preferred Return - Investor Thresholds - Dynamic Capital Repayment
I've done about a dozen joint venture waterfall frameworks and this most recent one is different enough from the rest that it deserves its own version. The way capital is repaid and the pref. works is unique to any other template I've done.
Advanced Warehouse Fulfillment Financial Model (Pallet & Cubic Foot Versions)
I've done more critical research in warehouse logistics than I thought I'd ever do in my life after building this financial model. We are talking about 3rd party logistics (3PL). The template does a great job at capturing seasonality, warehouse sizing economics, activity-driven revenues / expenses, and showing a financial projection based on bottom-up assumptions.
Financial Model Sensitivity Analysis: LCOE ($/MWh)
LCOE is a way to measure the total lifetime cost to produce energy by a power plant, denominated in MWh. It could be solar, wind, nuclear, or what have you. The calculation stands for levelized cost of energy and the idea is to calculate the present value of all costs against the present value of all future energy production. The goal is to find out how much it cost to produce a MWh of energy in today's dollars.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)