The runway number founders miscalculate — and how to fix it in one afternoon
First-time founders tracking bank balance instead of true runway
Founders confuse cash in the bank with runway and run out faster than they planned
Most founders think runway is money in the bank divided by monthly spend. That number is a lie, and it is why teams get surprised three months early. Real runway accounts for the spend that has not hit yet: the annual contracts renewing, the hire starting next month, the taxes nobody budgeted. We rebuilt ours as a rolling thirteen week cash forecast, not a single divide. Every committed outflow goes in on the week it actually lands. Suddenly a comfortable eleven months became a nervous eight, and we raised earlier instead of scrambling. Cash in the bank is a photo. Runway is the movie. Forecast the outflows you have already promised, and you will never be surprised by your own bank account again.
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