Startup Finance

Burn rate is the single number that tells you how long your startup can survive. This guide walks through the gross and net burn formulas, shows you how to build a dynamic burn rate model in Excel with real cell references, and flags the mistakes that make most spreadsheet models dangerously optimistic.

When runway gets tight, generic advice like ‘cut costs’ doesn’t help. This guide covers 12 specific levers a finance team can pull to extend runway — with concrete numbers, worked examples, and a framework for modeling the impact of each one.