How to Build a Bottoms-up Financial Model

Hello, this is Hall T. Martin with the Startup Funding Espresso -- your daily shot of startup funding and investing.

There are two approaches to building a financial model: top-down and bottoms-up.

The bottoms-up approach uses specific data from your financials, such as historical revenue, specific expenses, working capital, etc.

You apply assumptions to the historical numbers to build out the projections.

To build a bottoms-up financial model, consider the following:

Sales and marketing expenses drive the revenue.

Review the historical relationship between sales and marketing expenses and revenue. 

Project expenses and revenue based on the monetization model you have, such as recurring revenue, transaction fee, contract work, etc.

Calculate your cost of goods sold which is the cost to build and deliver the product.

Project the operating expenses which are those that do not directly drive the revenue, such as office leases and utilities.

Fixed expenses remain the same.

Variable expenses rise and fall with the activity of the business.

Calculate your working capital, also called cash runway.

Add key metrics into the model such as customer acquisition cost, lifetime value of customer, and growth rate.

Adjust the model for any other business conditions or events such as a fundraise.


Thank you for joining us for the Startup Funding Espresso where we help startups and investors connect for funding.

Let’s go startup something today.
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This is Investor Perspectives. I’m the host of Investor Connect, Hall T. Martin, where we connect startups and investors for funding.

In our new Investor Perspectives series entitled “Faith-Based Investing in a Post-COVID World”, you’ll hear our guests’ investment theses.

As the COVID pandemic passes, we emerge into a new era. The faith-based investing space is now undergoing tremendous change as we shift to a post-COVID world. Faith-based investing takes precedence with many investors in the financial industry. We have investors and startup founders describe the changes coming up.

Our guests are:

Tony Long, Co-Founder and Managing Partner, CLX Ventures LLC [01:12]
David Simms, Managing Partner and Founder, Talanton [02:49]
Andrew Stoner, Chief Investment Officer, Paradiem LLC [04:11]
Wes Lyons, General Partner, Eagle Venture Fund [05:28]
Michael Arrieta, Founder and CEO, Garden City Companies (startup) [06:19]
Josh Wilson, Principal Broker and Owner, Kingdom Syndicate [08:04]
Bill Wichterman, Angel Investor [08:57]

We hope you enjoy the show.
_______________________________
For more episodes from Investor Connect, please visit the site at: http://investorconnect.org

Check out our other podcasts here: https://investorconnect.org/ 
For Investors check out: https://tencapital.group/investor-landing/   
For Startups check out: https://tencapital.group/company-landing/   
For eGuides check out: https://tencapital.group/education/   
For upcoming Events, check out https://tencapital.group/events/ 

For Feedback please contact info@tencapital.group  

Please follow, share, and leave a review.

Music courtesy of Bensound.