Finance Case Study Example | SaaS Startup Financial Model [Template Included]

[@eric_andrews]

Questions? Let me know in the comments happy to discuss. 🚀Also, if you want to learn which finance frameworks the top 1% of founders use to scale their startups to massive outcomes, have a look at this ⇒ www.ericandrewsstartups.com/financeforstartups

[@jenspelling7122]

I had a chance to take Eric's last Finance for Startups with my Product Manager. After taking the course it is amazing how we look at our online business differently now.... We no longer focus on the sale but the Lifetime value of a customer and we have as a company analyzed and re-adjusted all of our online marketing budgets to reflect this fresh focus.... Just in the past 90 days we have seen phenomenal growth... If you are reading this.... THEN TAKE THE COURSE, YOU WILL NOT REGRET IT! Thank you Eric

[@eric_andrews]

Hey Jen - really appreciate you sharing your experience about the course!!! I'm so happy it is helping you take your business to the next level, congrats to you and thanks for the endorsement 🙏🙏

[@asadyousafzai2904]

I wish I could like this video a thousand times, great work Eric, keep it up, and keep on educating us. Really looking forward to joining your training cohort.

[@eric_andrews]

Thanks Asad, lot's more coming this year 👍👍 hope to see you there

[@blessedowo1958]

I see Eric, I watch then upvote.

[@eric_andrews]

Great strategy 😎👌

[@jaceyoung2532]

Outstanding video. Thank you for sharing and putting all of the work into this! I learned a ton!

[@eric_andrews]

My pleasure, cheers!

[@rockopocko6944]

This is awesome! so thoroughly explained! Thanks

[@eric_andrews]

Glad it was helpful!

[@TheCaseybfl]

Great stuff man, keep it coming.

[@eric_andrews]

Glad you're finding it helpful Casey !!

[@sparkofjoy3191]

Thank you for this amazing video! 😃 could you please make a video or explain here how to calculate churn rate for this model (the CLTV part) based off of cohort analysis? It is has been confusing me for several days because the churn in cohort is not the same every month and an average doesn’t cut it so I get different CLTV 😅 thank you!

[@minksol4072]

Lots of value, thanks for the video!

[@eric_andrews]

Cheers 🙏

[@davebenjamin4388]

Thanks, I really enjoyed this video.

[@eric_andrews]

Glad to hear it Dave!

[@duke-qx8cm]

great content! keep up the good work

[@fleur257]

How do you calculate churn ? Any reference videos ? Thank you !

[@kacperjurasz5142]

That's what I needed. When do you start (more less ) the course Eric? Thanks ! :)

[@eric_andrews]

Glad to hear it! I'll open it up in in 1-2 weeks, just making a few upgrades to it before I re-launch 😎, and then the Q&A livestreams will begin around March 1. Hope to see you there!

[@zionperry5891]

Great video!

[@vincerob9660]

thank you , very useful videos!

[@eric_andrews]

You are welcome!

[@pearlbabbar7981]

what do cells in yellow highlight? how are they different from the one in blue?

[@carly1187]

If you were negotiating a contract for an actor, how would build a model to determine how much the actor should be paid for a new movie? Suppose Jennifer Lawrence were asked to start in a new movie. What factors would your model include?

[@debrajpaul1349]

I Eric want more content around digital marketing, saas & data

[@eric_andrews]

Those are all coming this year 😎

[@viviannnadozie496]

Thanks for the tutorial but i'm a bit confused. The question says 5.6 employee average size. I am assuming that is the number of employees to probably estimate headcount or salaries & wages (though it's a fraction). why are we assuming it is the number of users for their customers? Especially when calculating the LTV?

[@gujames1985]

Client customers, not the SAAS companies’ overhead employees

[@asmararasheed098]

Can we add balance sheet to this model?

[@bliss45]

Hi Eric. This might be a dumb question but, Why is it that you don't have any user movement on M1? Meaning that if we know that we start with 3100 users and we also know that we have a growth rate of 5% shouldn't we see that effect at the end of the month in M1? So Total net users 25,200. It is weird to me to start M1 and M2 with the same number of users assuming that the line "Starting" refers to the beginning of the month. Thanks!

[@corello690]

Hi Eric, could you do a video on a bottom up vs. top down financial modeling approach for SaaS in excel? Thanks!

[@eric_andrews]

I would always go bottoms-up, I don't think I've prepared a top-down financial model in my entire life!

[@usamaismail8003]

Please also make videos on QuickBooks and bookkeeping

[@Matthieulemoine9]

Hi Eric, I have a case for an interview, can you help me?

[@MaybeItsAnthony]

Not sure if I completely understand the mechanics behind your burn multiple. If I am EBIT positive for the month and new arr is on the decline, I would have a negative burn multiple? Could you elaborate on the mechanics a bit more here?

[@eric_andrews]

It would only apply to unprofitable companies !! The word "burn" refers to burning cash i.e. losing money, if you're profitable the metric no longer would apply to you as you already broke even

[@lucascaicedo4288]

Great video! One minor note- technically you're not showing EBIT, since you are embedding Taxes as a line item to get to OpEx.

[@gujames1985]

Payroll taxes are not the same as corp tax on earnings so I think his formatting is correct. He is missing depreciation expense in his EBIT call but *shrug*

[@lucascaicedo4288]

@@gujames1985 ah great point. Thx

[@kumailrizvi1649]

Hi Eric, thanks for the wonderful video. Don't you think if the Burn is for a month, the denominator in Burn Multiple should be Monthly Recurring Revenue rather than ARR?

[@eric_andrews]

Sure thing! You could probably make it monthly or annual, you would then just need to change the "multiple" itself that you are targeting. Probably the annualized one makes even more sense for B2B saas businesses that sign longer contracts like 12 months +, because that lock-in lines up a little better with the annualized numbers. But either way it's just a reference point for you to interpret and evaluate for yourself

[@VKGZ13]

I have a case interview coming up with an e-commerce giant. Essentially, the idea of the case is to identify if the company should continue drop shipping or open up 1 fulfillment center in each region (central, East, west). The issue they’re having is that they’re advertising “2 day shipping” but their suppliers are having a hard time meeting that timeframe. I have no data yet, just the scope of the case. How would you approach this? I assume I’d have to calculate the cost of operating the centers (inbound, outbound, and network costs) and determine how profitable it would be vs staying with the old model. I’ve never done a case interview before and I’m fairly new to the field, so it’d be nice to have some guidance. This is for a strategic SFA role.

[@eric_andrews]

Probably you should calculate the CAPEX cost of opening the fulfillment centers and then use your improved unit economics (with higher gross profit margins) to see how fast you would break even on those centers and how long that would take and if that's a good idea

[@VKGZ13]

@@eric_andrews I passed the interview. It was more of a fill in the blank type of test and to see if you know how to use excel. I had to calculate the per unit cost, factoring in labor and storage costs, and compare that how much it would cost to continue drop shipping vs open the warehouses. The recommendation I gave was that although it cost more to operate the warehouses at first, the cost will remain fixed as they could push 1 million products vs the 270k they do with the current model. If they were to push more products with the current model they would have to continue paying the suppliers more and it would exceed the cost of the warehouse to push the same amount of product, and it wouldn’t be able to ship on time so they would lose 20% in sales (given information).

[@eric_andrews]

@@VKGZ13 yep exactly you would just be solving for when the investment pays itself off, etc. sounds like you did a good job, congrats!

[@MsJoebones]

@@eric_andrews I have a case study tomorrow with Tesla and the recruiter said its based on understanding the business model plus ill be using Excel to determine a proposal. any recommendation or advice?

[@sumitmalik95]

Goated

[@miramwafek5156]

What if B2C model?

[@eric_andrews]

Just depends on the assumptions. Because churn is monthly on this video, many B2C businesses would be identical to this

[@پاکستانزندہباد-ك4و]

can I get this template???? 🙄

[@eric_andrews]

Yes it's in the description for download

[@catshaman7098]

Can you build a case study for a shitty business? I want to see the type of assumptions and operational advice you’d have to make for that

[@eric_andrews]

🤣 how bad are we talking, like pyramid scheme or more unsuccessful retailer/restaurant?