Financial Modeling For Business Owners And Entrepreneurs

Financial Modeling for Business Owners and Entrepreneurs: Developing Excel Models to Raise Capital, Increase Cash Flow, Improve Operations, Plan Projects, and Make Decisions may be one of the most important books any entrepreneur or manager in a small or medium-sized enterprise will read. It combines logical business principles and strategies with a step-by-step methodology for planning and modeling a company and solving specific business problems. You’ll learn to create operational and financial models in Excel that describe the workings of your company in quantitative terms and that make it far more likely you will avoid the traps and dead ends many businesses fall into. Serial entrepreneur and financial expert Tom Y. Sawyer shows how to break your company down into basic functional and operational components that can be modeled. The result is a financial model that, for example, you can literally take to the bank or bring to local angel investors to receive the funding you need to launch your business or a new product. Or it might be a model that shows with startling clarity that your new product development effort is a likely winner—or loser. Even better, you’ll learn to create models that will serve as guideposts for ongoing operations. You’ll always know just where you are financially, and where you need to be. The models you will learn to build in Financial Modeling for Business Owners and Entrepreneurs can be used to: Raise capital for startup or any stage of growth Plan projects and new initiatives Make astute business decisions, including go/no-go assessments Analyze ROI on your product development and marketing expenditures Streamline operations, manage budgets, improve efficiency, and reduce costs Value the business when it is time to cash out or merge In addition to many valuable exercises and tips for using Excel to model your business, this book contains a combination of practical advice born of hard-won lessons, advanced strategic thought, and the insightful use of hard skills. With a basic knowledge of Excel assumed, it will help you learn to think like an experienced business person who expects to make money on the products or services offered to the public. You’ll discover that the financial model is a key management tool that, if built correctly, provides invaluable assistance every step of the entrepreneurial journey. Tom Y. Sawyer has used the principles this book contains to create financial models of numerous startup and early-stage companies, assisting them in planning for and raising the capital that they needed to grow their businesses and ultimately exit with multiples of their initial investment. Financial Modeling for Business Owners and Entrepreneurs, a mini-MBA in entrepreneurship and finance, will show you how you can do the same. Note: This book is an updated version of Sawyer's 2009 title, Pro Excel Financial Modeling.

Too often, finance courses stop short of making a connection between textbook finance and the problems of real-world business. "Financial Modeling" bridges this gap between theory and practice by providing a nuts-and-bolts guide to solving common financial problems with spreadsheets. The CD-ROM contains Excel* worksheets and solutions to end-of-chapter exercises. 634 illustrations.

This book contains a few of the critical financial management tools and lessons that entrepreneurs, investors and financial professionals need to succeed when doing business in developing markets.⟨br⟩Since moving to Addis Ababa in 2014, I have worked as an investor, advisor and owner-operator in Ethiopia, one of the world''s most exciting developing markets. I now co-manage Ethiopia Investments Ltd., a permanent capital investment vehicle focused on Ethiopia, and serve as General Manager for EQOS Global, Ethiopia''s first dedicated business process outsourcing (BPO) company.⟨br⟩This book has five chapters:* Chapter 1 - My Path to Ethiopia, One of the World''s Most Exciting Developing Markets* Chapter 2 - Why Financial Management Matters More in Developing Markets* Chapter 3 - The Forecast Financial Model* Chapter 4 - Sensitivity Analysis and Other Key Analyses* Chapter 5 - Final Advice for Entrepreneurs in Developing Markets⟨br⟩Chapter 2 walks through issues that are unique to the business environments of developing markets and how they are different than issues faced by companies in more developed markets: * Handling currency devaluations, * Setting dynamic pricing strategies* Managing the treasury function between home and base currencies* Understanding burn-rate* Planning for inflation shocks* Managing net working capital defensively* Forecasting raw materials needs* Planning for supply chain shocks* Forecasting market demands* Planning for flexible tax impacts* And many more...⟨br⟩Chapter 3 includes a detailed walk-through of a Microsoft Excel-based financial model that considers treatment of the issues discussed in Chapter 2.⟨br⟩Chapter 4 makes use of the Microsoft Excel-based financial model to give you greater control and understanding over the variables that impact your business. This chapter will help you answer questions like, "How does the change in the price of my products on the export market impact my cash burn-rate in my home market?" or "How would a large currency devaluation impact the price that an investor would pay for a stake of equity in my business?"⟨br⟩Finally, Chapter 5 includes advice for entrepreneurs, both local and expat, thinking about what it would take to set-up shop in a developing market. ⟨br⟩I wrote this book with the following six audiences in mind:* Entrepreneurs - This book is for entrepreneurs in developing markets who are either in the process of setting up a new business or considering it. A developing entrepreneur can be either a local entrepreneur or an immigrant (expat) entrepreneur and the advice in this book will be helpful no matter where you are from.* Investors - This book is for investors who are focused on developing markets and hoping to understand how the approach that works in more developed markets may look completely different for developing markets. * Financial professionals - This book is also for financial professionals such as CFOs, Finance Managers and Financial Analysts looking to understand how business practices in developing economies differ from more developed markets. * Investment Advisors - This book is also for investment advisors building advisory practices in developing countries who are hoping to bridge the gap between developing and developed markets.* Students - This book is also for students, both formal and informal, looking to learn more about business in developing countries. * Professionals - Finally, this book is for professionals interested in learning more about doing business in developing countries. ⟨br⟩This is the book that I wish I had when left my investment banking job and got on the plane from San Francisco to Addis Ababa in January 2014. Every lesson in this book has been learned by my team and me, sometimes painfully, and I hope that you find it to be helpful for you as you take on similar challenges, no matter where you are trying to operate.

Provides instructions on using Excel to create financial models, including models for staffing, sales and revenue, inventory, marketing, product development, capital expenditures, and cash flow.

A proven guide to building financial models from scratch The Second Edition of Building Financial Models with Microsoft Excel + CD-ROM provides beginning and intermediate level computer users with step-by-step instructions on building financial models using Microsoft Excel 2007-the most popular spreadsheet program available. The accompanying CD-ROM contains Excel worksheets that track the course of the book and allow you to build your own financial models. This comprehensive resource also covers important topics such as the concepts of valuation, sensitivity analysis, and contribution margin. Offers accessible guidance on building financial models using Excel 2007 Illustrates how to integrate financial statements such as the balance sheet, income statement, and statement of cash flows Covers the basics of building and using a Capitalization Table Discusses how to best present a financial model Incorporating financial models into business decisions has become an essential element of good business practice, and this book will show you how to excel at this endeavor.

This new edition of Entrepreneurial Financial Management presents an applied, realistic view of finance for today’s entrepreneurs. The book provides an integrated set of concepts and applications, drawn from entrepreneurship, finance, and accounting, that will prepare aspiring entrepreneurs for the world they are likely to face as they start their new businesses. The book’s contents are designed to follow the life cycle of a new business venture. Topics are covered in the order that entrepreneurs can expect to encounter them as they begin the process of business start-up and move into growing the business. A comprehensive financial spreadsheet template is included with the book. This tool allows for the application of many of the concepts to actual businesses, and can be a valuable supplement to the process of developing a full business plan. The financial spreadsheet templates are available for unlimited free downloads at Professor Cornwall’s blog site: www.drjeffcornwall.com. Key Changes in the Third Edition • The authors have added material on how the book’s financial templates align with business modeling. • The financial templates have been updated and now include more up-to-date assumptions on benefit costs. • There is updated coverage of debt and equity financing due to new regulations and evolving investor expectations. • The bootstrapping chapter has been revised to reflect the explosion of social media and its impact on bootstrap marketing.

The Founder's Dilemmas examines how early decisions by entrepreneurs can make or break a startup and its team. Drawing on a decade of research, including quantitative data on almost ten thousand founders as well as inside stories of founders like Evan Williams of Twitter and Tim Westergren of Pandora, Noam Wasserman reveals the common pitfalls founders face and how to avoid them.

Entrepreneurial Finance: Venture Capital, Deal Structure & Valuation, Second Edition illustrates how the theory and methods of finance and economics can be used to guide strategic decision-making. This text prepares readers for a variety of situations that confront stakeholders in the rapidly evolving fields of entrepreneurial finance and venture capital, outlining ways to think from the investor's and entrepreneur's perspectives. Readers will find a unique and direct focus on value creation as the objective of each strategic and financial choice. The authors specifically address the influences of risk and uncertainty on new venture success and investment performance, devoting substantial attention to methods of financial modeling and contract design. Finally, they provide a comprehensive survey of approaches to new venture valuation, with an emphasis on applications. The second edition is thoroughly revised to reflect new data, research, and changes in practice in this fast-moving field. It has an increased focus on venture capital, while maintaining its hallmark coverage of the financial aspects of entrepreneurship. Updates throughout address technological changes that have the potential to dramatically change the landscape for finance, such as recent innovations in contracting for early-stage ventures, artificial intelligence and machine learning, and Internet connectivity. Lastly, the book offers a companion website with a useful suite of resources for students and instructors alike, including spreadsheets, templates, simulation applications, and interactive cases and tutorials.

Entrepreneurs have a problem: startups. Almost all startups either fail or never truly reach a sustainable size. Despite the popularity of entrepreneurship, we haven't engineered a better way to start...until now. What if you could skip the startup phase and generate profitable revenue on day one? In BUY THEN BUILD, acquisition entrepreneur Walker Deibel shows you how to begin with a sustainable, profitable company and grow from there. You'll learn how to: Buy an existing company rather than starting from scratch Use ownership as a path to financial independence Spend a fraction of the time raising capital Find great brokers, generate your own "deal flow," and see new listings early Uncover the best opportunities and biggest risks of any company Navigate the acquisition process Become a successful acquisition entrepreneur And more BUY THEN BUILD is your guide to outsmart the startup game, live the entrepreneurial lifestyle, and reap the financial rewards of ownership now.