vc
entrepreneurial finance
Filed in archive Entrepreneurship by tj on February 4, 2004
Jeffrey Cornwall unveils his authorship of a book called "Entrepreneurial Financial Management". Here is a summary of his main points:




  • Cash is king: No matter what, don't run out of money. Nothing else in this article matters if you run out of money. This means know your burn rate (the net cash that is flowing out of your business each month) and be aware that your low cash point for any given month may not be at the end of the month. In other words, don't get caught planning based on full month figures only to find that you do not have enough money to pay your most important vendor on the 15th because your customers don't pay you until the 30th.

  • Measure everything: If you have real financial systems in place, you can measure everything. Be obsessive about it. Some things that you'll measure will be similar to what most other businesses measure, such as your P&L, Balance sheet, and cash flow statements. Other things will be unique to your business -- oriented around your specific customers or products. As your business grows, make sure you evolve and expand what you measure to best reflect the current state of your business. Look especially for metrics that will help tell you where your business is going, not just where it has come from. Financial systems can and should capture more than just historical financial results.

  • Finance your business appropriately for what you are trying to create: One of the most common mistakes an early stage entrepreneur makes is trying to raise the wrong kind of money for the business. It makes no sense for a service business that could potentially be a $5 million company within three years to try to raise $10 million of venture capital. Correspondingly, it doesn't make sense for a capital-intensive company that needs to build a plant to raise $250,000 of angel money.



Something to remember :-)


Permalink: entrepreneurial finance
Tags: finance  business  entrepreneurial  entrepreneurship  technology  entrepreneurial+finance  venture+capital 
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