Burn rate & runway calculator
Forward net burn, runway months and the date cash runs out.
Guide
Startup financials: unit economics, runway and valuation
Three numbers govern most early-stage outcomes: what a customer costs, how long they pay, and how long the cash lasts. Everything here is about calculating those honestly.
6 articles in this guide
Reading order
Work through it in sequence
Each article stands alone, but they are ordered the way the work happens on a live deal.
Unit economics: reading CAC, LTV and payback honestly
How to calculate CAC, LTV and CAC payback period without flattering the numbers, which definitional choices distort them, and what benchmarks actually mean at each stage.
24 August 2026 · 8 min read
What is a good CAC payback period?
How to calculate CAC payback correctly on a gross-margin basis, what payback periods hold up at seed, Series A and beyond, and the accounting choices that quietly flatter the number.
25 August 2026 · 7 min read
Burn rate and runway, calculated honestly
Gross versus net burn, why the runway number in most decks is optimistic, and the three adjustments that make it defensible before an investment committee.
25 August 2026 · 7 min read
How much runway should a startup have?
Why eighteen to twenty-four months is the working standard, what runway to hold when raising, and the trigger points at which financing risk becomes the dominant risk in the business.
25 August 2026 · 6 min read
Valuing a company with no revenue
The methods used to value pre-revenue startups — scorecard, comparables, dilution-first and venture method — and how to document a valuation so it can be defended later.
24 August 2026 · 8 min read
How much equity should you give away in a seed round?
Typical seed dilution ranges, how the option pool shuffles dilution onto founders, and how to work backwards from the capital you actually need rather than from a target valuation.
25 August 2026 · 7 min read
Free resources
Do the work, not just the reading
The same methods, packaged as tools and templates you can use on a live deal today.
Startup valuation calculator
Scorecard, venture-method and dilution-implied cross-checks.