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Done for you in 3 minutes.
Walk away with a clear, month-by-month cash runway projection and burn rate analysis for your startup to share with investors or guide your financial planning.
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Every founder knows the quiet anxiety of watching the bank account dwindle while trying to build something great. A startup runway and burn rate projection is your financial GPS, showing you exactly how many months of survival you have left before you run out of cash. You need this model when preparing for a fundraising round, adjusting your hiring roadmap, or simply trying to sleep better at night knowing your exact financial limits. A truly great projection doesn't just copy last month’s expenses forward; it dynamically accounts for seasonal shifts, realistic hiring timelines, and variable customer acquisition costs. It bridges the gap between optimistic growth plans and cold, hard bank realities, giving you the clarity needed to make tough decisions early. By mapping out your gross and net burn rates month-by-month, you transform raw fear into actionable strategy, showing investors and your team that you are steering the ship with absolute precision and realistic foresight.
Gross burn is the total amount of cash your startup spends each month on operating expenses, regardless of income. Net burn is the actual cash lost each month, calculated by subtracting your monthly revenue from your gross burn. Investors look closely at net burn because it represents the true rate at which your cash reserves are depleting.
A healthy early-stage startup should ideally maintain a minimum of 12 to 18 months of cash runway. This timeframe gives you at least six months to focus purely on product and growth, followed by a standard six-month window to execute your next fundraising round before cash runs dangerously low. Anything under six months requires immediate, defensive cost-cutting or active fundraising measures.
No, you should never include unclosed fundraising rounds as guaranteed cash in your primary runway model. Instead, build a separate funded scenario tab to show how that money will be spent once it clears. Your primary operating model must always reflect the reality of the cash currently sitting in your bank account today.
When revenue is highly unpredictable, you should calculate your runway using a zero-revenue or worst-case scenario based entirely on your gross burn rate. This conservative approach ensures you do not overestimate your survival time based on temporary sales spikes. You can then layer on a trailing three-month average of your net burn to create a more realistic middle-ground forecast.
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