I need to understand my finances

Runway is the number that kills startups, and contribution margin is the one that decides every pricing call. Start here and neither will surprise you.

The lessons, in order

  1. Revenue, costs and profit — The three numbers everything else is built on, and the difference between the money that comes in and the money you keep. (10 min)
  2. Profit is not cash — Profitable companies go bankrupt. This is the single most important idea in company finance and almost nobody explains it to founders. (12 min)
  3. Fixed and variable costs — The split that decides what happens when you grow, shrink, or have a bad quarter. Most founders classify their own time as neither, and that is where the trouble starts. (11 min)
  4. Contribution margin and the CM ratio — How much of each sale is left to cover everything else. One number, and it answers most of the questions founders take to spreadsheets. (13 min)
  5. MRR and ARR — Recurring revenue is the number investors care about most — and the one founders most often calculate wrongly. (10 min)
  6. 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)
  7. Break-even and operating leverage — The revenue that makes you self-sufficient, and why the same structure that makes growth spectacular makes a bad quarter dangerous. (12 min)
  8. Working capital and why growth eats cash — The money trapped between doing the work and being paid for it. It is why profitable, growing companies run out of money — and it is the cheapest financing you are not using. (12 min)
  9. Reading an income statement — The P&L, top to bottom. Fifteen minutes and you will never be lost in an accountant's email again. (12 min)
  10. Reading a balance sheet — What you own, what you owe, and what is left. A snapshot rather than a period — and the one that has to balance. (10 min)
  11. Reading a cash flow statement — The statement that reconciles 'we are profitable' with 'we have no money'. Three sections, one answer. (10 min)
  12. 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)

All Founder Academy subjects