UPDATED 2018After years of building financial models I have seen a lot of commonly asked questions about best practices, resources and templates. I started compiling a list of financial modeling resources on the web, and over time that list has grown. I’m constantly updating this so if I missed something let me know. Contact me.
Financial Model Best Practices and Spreadsheet Design
- The FAST Standard for financial modeling
- Taylor Davidson, Effective Spreadsheet Design
- Kostas Stavreas, Is the Financial Model Dead?
- David Teten, Best Practices in Spreadsheet Design
- Great Quora thread on building a financial model for a web-only product startup
- Mark MacLeod, 3 traits of a great financial model
- Taylor Davidson, Why Financial Models are Easier Than You Think
- Nathan Beckord, Your Financial Model is a Work of Fiction; Build it Anyway
- Haje Jan Kamps, How to understand the financial levers of your business
General Startup Financial Model Excel Templates
- Eloquens, multiple financial models and business planning tools available to download (free and paid)
- David Teten’s startup financial model
- Giff Constable’s freemium business model template
- Glenn Kelman’s financial model from Redfin
- Andrew Chen’s freemium business model
- Tim Raybould, A cash model template for startups
- Taylor Davidson of Foresight, Financial model templates for startups for SaaS, subscription, ecommerce, marketplace, and advertising businesses
- Michael Herman, financial model
Financial Modeling Software ($)
SaaS Financial Model Templates and How-To
- Christoph Janz, SaaS Financial Plan 2.0
- David Skok, SaaS Metrics 2.0 – A Guide to Measuring and Improving what Matters
- Taylor Davidson of Foresight, SaaS Financial Model
- Brandon Marker, early-stage SaaS financial model template
- Baremetrics SaaS Financial Model
- Nikos Moraitakis, Financial planning for SaaS startups
- Eloquens, SaaS Model Templates
- Alexander Jarvis, SaaS Financial Model
- Garrett Dimon, Starting and Sustaining, a guide for SaaS web apps
- Christoph Janz, A KPI Dashboard for early-stage SaaS Startups
- Andreessen Horowitz, Understanding SaaS, a Valuation Primer
- Sean Moran, How to project customer retention for a subscription business
- Ali Rahimtula, Fundraise Like a Pro Using this Internal SaaS Metrics Playbook
- Jeff Bussgang of Flybridge Capital, Your LTV Math is Wrong
- Ben Murray, SaaS metric and forecasting models
- Thomas Smale of FE International, How to Value a SaaS Business
Ecommerce Financial Model Templates and How-To
- Taylor Davidson of Foresight, Ecommerce Financial Model
- Eloquens, Ecommerce Model Templates
- Matthew Carroll’s sample ecommerce model, explanation in detailed Quora thread
- Jeremy Liew’s how to estimate lifetime value for an ecommerce business (with cohort analysis)
Marketplace Templates and How-To
- Taylor Davidson, Standard Financial Model for Marketplaces
- Version One Ventures Marketplace Handbook
- Bill Gurley, All Markets are Not Created Equal: 10 Factors to Consider When Evaluating Digital Marketplaces
- Version One Ventures Marketplace KPI Spreadsheet
Financial Models and Portfolio Math for Venture and Angel Investors
- Taylor Davidson of Foresight, Venture Investor Model
- Sam Gerstenzang, Open Source Venture Model
- Nicholas Chirls, A Million Dollars in Fees?!?!
- Matt H. Lerner, A Tale of Two Squirrels: The Not So Simple Math on Venture Portfolio Size
- Samir Kaji, So you want to start a VC firm?
Resourcing and Operations Tempates for Agencies
- Taylor Davidson, Consulting and Services Financial Model
- Revelry Labs, Resourcing Spreadsheet for development shops and agencies
User Acquisition and Growth
- Noah Kagan, You’re Still Modeling Growth Wrong
- Andrew Chen, How to calculate cost per acquisition for startups
- David Skok, Modeling User Acquisition
- Jamie Quint, on modeling retention and virality, Retention is King (Guest Post)
- Andrew Chen, Facebook Viral Marketing (commentary and links to cohort analysis)
- Andrew Chen, What’s Your Viral Loop?
- Rahul Vohra, How to Model Viral Growth
Revenue Models and Forecasts
- Fred Wilson, Web and Mobile Revenue Models
- Steve Blank, The Business Development / Customer Development Stack
- Tim Berry, Creating a Sales Forecast
- Larry Cheng, How to Estimate your Addressable Market
- Taylor Davidson, Creating your Assumptions
- Ben Einstein on financing strategies for Hardware startups, Kickstarter is Debt
Metrics and Datapoints for Startup Financial Models
- Andreessen Horowitz, 16 Startup Metrics
- Mattermark, Important Financial Indicators for Startups at Every Stage of Growth
- Thomas Tunguz, The 10 Most Important Metrics In A Startup’s Financial Statements
- Joe Stump, How To Spend your Investors’ Money
- Thomas Tunguz, The Ratio Of Engineers To Sales People In Billion Dollar SaaS Startups
- Thomas Tunguz, How Much Cash Does Your Startup Need To Go Public?
- Fred Wilson, Forecasting
Cap Tables, Valuation, Equity, and Convertible Note Mechanics
- Taylor Davidson of Foresight, How-to - Cap Tables, Liquidation Preferences and Exit Proceeds
- Venturehacks, How to make a cap table
- Mark Suster, valuation and sample capitalization table
- Raj Bedi, Discount or cap? A spreadsheet that shows what happens when a note converts.
- Michael Dempsey, Liquidation Preferences, A Waterfall Analysis, and Educating Startup Employees
- Derek Colla of Cooley, Calculating Share Price with Outstanding Convertible Notes
- Carlos Eduardo Espinal, How does an early-stage investor value a startup?
- Eloquens, Cap Table Examples
Metrics and Dashboards How-To
- Christoph Janz, The Easiest Spreadsheet for churn, MRR, and Cohort Analysis
- Jeremy Liew, How to estimate lifetime value (with sample cohort analysis)
- Andrew Chen, What Factors Influence DAU/MAU? Nature v. Nuture (also, Appdata is a great resource for DAU/MAU data)
- Andreas Klinger, The simplest and most important dashboard for early stage startups
- Dave McClure, Startup Metrics for Pirates
- Eloquens, KPI Dashboard Templates
- Kyle Rush, Optimization at the Obama Campaign, A/B Testing
- Ben Sesser, Memo to this year’s YC class: It’s damn hard to build an enterprise company, including some stats about enterprise companies
Pitch Decks
- Venture Hacks, What Should I Send Investors: Deck
- NextView Ventures, Pitch Decks for Raising Seed Capital
- Bing Gordon of KPCB, How To Craft A Concise Pitch Investors Will Care About
- Mark Suster and Mark Jeffrey, What Makes a Good Pitch
- Eloquens, Pitch Deck Examples
- Examples of web pitch decks by Piccsy and CSS Piffle
Fundraising
- Paul Graham of Y Combinator, How to Raise Money
- Alexander Taub, A Very Simplified + Formulaic Way To Raise Your Seed Round
- Steve Schlafman of RRE Ventures, Raising Seed Capital
- Taylor Davidson, Fundraising for Entrepreneurs
- Sam Altman of Y Combinator, Fundraising Mistakes Founders Make
- Hyde Park Angels, How to Read a Term Sheet
- Eloquens, Fund Raising Methods
Employee Equity Valuation and Structure
- Taylor Davidson, Employee Equity 101
- Eden Shochat, Closing the Information Gap on Employee Option Grants: Part One
Board Meetings and Metrics Dashboards
- Visible, Board Meeting Packet Template
- IA Ventures, Startup Docs
- David Teten, Board Meetings