Maxwell Consulting

Financing for Startups

Balance Sheet

Many entrepreneurs approach investors without a Balance Sheet in their projections, because they figure that investors don't really care about this aspect of their company.  Moreover, it's very difficult to get a projected Balance Sheet to actually balance, so why bother?   The answer is simple.  You can't get an accurate Statement of Cash Flow without a Balance Sheet, and EVERYONE cares about cash.

For example, a Balance Sheet projection will contain a critical assumption for the average number of days in your customers' payment cycles, which in turn drives the amount of cash tied up in Accounts Receivables.  For product companies, the Balance Sheet also calculates the amount of cash tied up in the inventory needed to support the sales volumes from the Revenue Model.  And for all companies, the Balance Sheet reflects the cash consumed by the asset purchases in the Fixed Asset Schedule.

Here is a section from a typical Balance Sheet:

Balance

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