Burn rate

How much cash the company spends per month. Gross burn is everything going out; net burn is what goes out after revenue comes in.

Example

Costs of $8,000/mo with $3,000/mo of revenue means gross burn $8,000, net burn $5,000.

When an investor asks 'what's your burn?' they almost always mean NET burn. Answering with gross makes you look either wasteful or unclear.

Net burn — Monthly cash out minus monthly cash in. The real rate at which your bank balance falls.
Runway — How many months your company can keep operating before it runs out of money, at its current rate of spending.
Cash flow — The actual movement of money in and out of your bank account, as distinct from revenue you have earned but not been paid.

Producing your own P&L and cash view — Turning categorised transactions into the two reports you will actually use, and the six numbers you should be able to recite from memory. (14 min)
Should you hire at all? — A hire is the biggest recurring commitment a startup makes. Four cheaper options to rule out first. (10 min)
Vendors, tools and recurring costs — Subscriptions accumulate silently. An annual audit routinely finds 20–30% of tool spend buying nothing. (10 min)
Burn rate and runway — The number that decides whether your company survives. If you learn one thing from this whole Academy, learn this. (12 min)
Building a startup budget — A budget is not a prediction. It is a decision about what you will spend, made once, calmly, instead of forty times under pressure. (12 min)
Scenario planning — Three versions of next year — conservative, base and aggressive — so that a bad quarter is something you prepared for rather than something that happens to you. (12 min)