This chapter covers
- What is going to keep you up at night the most? Your monthly cash burn.
- What is the most important number you should track every day? How many months of cash are left.
- What happens when the runway ends? It’s game over. The company will wind up operations.
Most startups fail—about 8 or 9 out of 10. The majority of failures are because they run out of cash. There are a lot of reasons your startup might run out of cash, so watching the cash, how fast it is being spent, and how long what you have left will last are the most important things you, or the CEO, must pay attention to. Let’s talk about cash and how to think about it, and what to do about it getting too low—before your company runs off that cliff.
18.1 What are burn rate and runway, and why do they matter?
Burn rate is one of the most important metrics you need to track in your startup because you must not just run out of cash “by accident” for lack of attention to it.
Oh, you’re right; unprofitable is not a nice word to use for the way an early-stage startup thinks about itself—but it’s accurate. You are unprofitable on day 1, and your goal is to become profitable before you run out of cash (or can raise more).