What to Include in Your Financials
Your financials should be more of a way for investors to judge your ability to plan ahead, conduct research, and come up with a compelling pitch. Here are the things you should include as your financials.
Key assumptions
What is the cost of acquiring a customer? The product price? Increase of goods sold per month or year? Customer retention rate? Projected employee costs? Attainable market size? Think through your business, create a list of key assumptions, and be able to walk the investors through. Make sure the assumptions are realistic and grounded in reality. To take it one step further, create a base case of assumptions; a downside case, in which business is slower than you expect; and a home run case, where business is better than you expect. Assign a probability to each.
Cash flow statement, balance sheet, and income statement
The three documents are linked to one another, so you should think of them as a package. They are meant to provide a snapshot of your business, as well as create a basis for future projections.
Use of funds
Investors will want to understand how, specifically, you plan to use their capital to grow their business. Be intentional here – specify how you plan to use the money, and how it will get you to break-even, or to the next fundraise.