Finance questions founders don't always have time to unpack.
No jargon. Practical thinking for founders navigating growth, finance and fundraising.
Where to start.
If you're preparing to raise
Know whether the business is ready before investor scrutiny.
Explore Investment Readiness →Start with
What do investors actually check before they fund you?
Read →If you want to understand the business better
Questions that reveal what is actually changing.
Explore Financial Clarity →Start with
Revenue is growing. But is your business getting better?
Read →If finance is getting harder to run
Know when you need stronger finance systems or leadership.
Explore Strategic Finance →Start with
What does a fractional CFO actually do?
Read →Revenue is growing. But is the business getting better?
Browse by question.
Business Health
What numbers should founders actually track?
Most dashboards have too many metrics and too little signal. Here's the short list that actually matters.
Read →Business Health
Why do blended margins mislead?
A healthy average margin can hide a product, plan or location that loses money on every sale, and it is usually the one growing fastest. How to split the average, and what to do with what you find.
Read →Business Health
What is gross margin in a services business?
Your invoice says one thing and the work earned something else. Utilisation, realisation and the bench decide the gap, and most agencies and IT services firms have never measured any of the three.
Read →Business Health
What payroll and statutory registrations do we need as we hire?
PF, ESIC, professional tax and gratuity arrive at different headcounts and different salary levels, and the labour codes changed the base they are calculated on. What triggers what, and what it costs.
Read →Business Health
Why do your auditor and your MIS disagree?
The audited accounts say one profit figure and the management pack said another all year. Usually both are right. The six reasons they differ, and which ones mean something is wrong.
Read →Business Health
Why is our gross margin falling?
Revenue is up, the team has not changed, and margin has slipped four points over three quarters. A diagnostic that finds the cause in an afternoon, in the order worth checking.
Read →Business Health
What should we expect from our accountant?
Founders frequently suspect their CA firm is underdelivering and cannot say what the standard should be. What is reasonable to expect, what is not, and how to fix the relationship before replacing it.
Read →Business Health
Why do our numbers always arrive too late to use?
The accounts for March land in the third week of April, by which point April is nearly over and nothing can be done about either. What actually causes a slow close, and how to get to the fifth working day.
Read →Cash & Profitability
Why is cash tight when we’re profitable?
You can be profitable on paper and out of cash in the bank. Here's why, and what to track instead.
Read →Cash & Profitability
Cash is running out next month: what do you do first?
Payroll is three weeks away and the bank balance won't cover it. What to do in the first 48 hours, in what order, and the mistakes that make a short month much worse.
Read →Cash & Profitability
Should we accept 90-day payment terms from a big customer?
A large customer offers the contract you've been chasing, on 90-day payment terms. What those terms really cost in cash and runway, how the MSME payment rules change the conversation, and what to negotiate instead of simply saying yes.
Read →Cash & Profitability
How do we extend runway without raising?
Before a bridge, a cut or a difficult board conversation, there are usually three to six months sitting inside the business already. Where they hide, in what order to take them, and what each one costs.
Read →Cash & Profitability
Why does growth need more cash than it produces?
Every rupee of new revenue ties up cash in receivables and inventory before it arrives in the bank. How much your business needs per rupee of growth, and how to work out whether you can afford the next year.
Read →Growth Decisions
Why was our best month so hard on cash?
A spike in growth can hide the exact moment things start breaking. Here's what to check before you celebrate.
Read →Growth Decisions
Fractional CFO, full-time CFO, or accountant?
Three different jobs that get talked about as if they are the same one. Here is how to tell which you actually need.
Read →Growth Decisions
What should CFO support actually cost?
Published retainers for virtual and fractional CFO work in India span a tenfold range. The gap is not negotiation, it is that the same title covers three different jobs.
Read →Growth Decisions
What do the numbers need to show before opening a new location?
A second clinic, outlet, kitchen or centre looks like the obvious next step when the first one works. What the first site really earns, what a new one costs until it breaks even, and how to test the decision before signing a lease.
Read →Growth Decisions
When should you stop a product that isn't working?
A product line launched with real conviction, a team behind it, and results that are always about to improve next quarter. How to build its honest numbers, set a test before the review, and consider the options between keeping it and killing it.
Read →Growth Decisions
Will a new product line pay back, and when?
The team wants to build a new product line because customers keep asking for it. How to count the whole investment, work out contribution rather than revenue, allow for cannibalisation, and see when it pays back, including what happens if adoption is half as fast.
Read →Growth Decisions
Should we raise our prices?
Most founders are more afraid of a price rise than the numbers justify. How much volume a rise can afford to lose, how to test it without risking the base, and the signals that say you are underpriced.
Read →Growth Decisions
Who should our first finance hire be?
Not a CFO, and usually not an accountant either. What the first finance person in an Indian startup actually does, when the role earns its cost, and how to tell whether you need a hire or better help from outside.
Read →Growth Decisions
How much should founders pay themselves after raising?
Too little and you distort the cost base and burn out. Too much and it becomes the first thing an investor questions. How to set the number, what the data on Indian founder pay actually says, and how to explain it.
Read →Growth Decisions
Should we raise a bridge round or cut burn?
Nine months of runway, a round that is not coming together, and two uncomfortable options. How to decide between them on evidence rather than optimism, and why the answer is usually some of both.
Read →Growth Decisions
How should we price a fixed-price project?
A fixed price transfers the risk of overrun from your client to you. How to build the number from hours rather than from their budget, what contingency is actually for, and when not to quote fixed price at all.
Read →Planning & Forecasting
Why is our financial model wrong when the maths is right?
A model can tie out perfectly and still lead you to the wrong decision. Here's where the gap comes from.
Read →Planning & Forecasting
When do spreadsheets stop being enough?
Spreadsheets work for longer than people admit. Here are the signals that you have actually outgrown them.
Read →Planning & Forecasting
What should you set up in finance after raising seed?
The money has landed, investors now have information rights, and payroll is about to grow quickly. Here is what to put in place in the first month, the first quarter, and before the next round, and what can safely wait.
Read →Planning & Forecasting
What changes in your first audit after raising?
The first statutory audit after a funding round is usually tougher than the ones before it. Why CARO reporting often applies for the first time, what auditors look at in ESOPs, gratuity and revenue, and a timeline that gets the accounts done without a scramble.
Read →Planning & Forecasting
Budget, forecast or rolling forecast: which should we run?
Three words used interchangeably for three different jobs. What each one is for, which your company actually needs, and why most rolling forecasts are abandoned inside two quarters.
Read →Planning & Forecasting
How do you plan for scenarios without pretending to predict?
Three columns labelled best, base and worst are not scenario planning. What the technique actually is, how to build scenarios that change decisions, and the trigger points that make them useful.
Read →Planning & Forecasting
How do you forecast usage-based revenue?
When customers pay for what they consume, a growth rate is not a forecast. How to build one from drivers, why the cost line moves with it, and what to tell investors about revenue that has no contracted floor.
Read →Planning & Forecasting
What should finance look like at our revenue?
The reporting, planning, controls and people a company needs at ₹2 crore are not what it needs at ₹20 crore. What changes at each step, what breaks if you skip it, and what is safe to leave until later.
Read →Planning & Forecasting
How do you budget when revenue is unpredictable?
Every planning guide assumes you can forecast revenue. Some businesses genuinely cannot. How to build a plan around what you actually control, and commit spending in stages rather than all at once.
Read →Planning & Forecasting
Why do we keep missing our own forecast?
Not the method, which is usually fine. The reasons a forecast is wrong in the same direction every quarter are organisational, and they are all fixable without anyone learning a new technique.
Read →Investment Readiness
Why is our funding round taking so long?
Where the weeks actually go once a process starts, which delays you control and which you do not, and what a stalling round costs beyond time.
Read →Investment Readiness
Am I ready to raise?
Not a feeling, and not a revenue threshold. A short self-assessment across the five things that get tested, and what each answer tells you about where the work is.
Read →Investment Readiness
When should I start fundraising?
Raising takes longer than most founders plan for. Working backwards from how long a round actually takes gives you a much more useful answer than a target date.
Read →Investment Readiness
What goes in a startup data room?
A practical list of what Indian investors ask for, roughly how many documents a round involves, and the gaps that cost founders weeks.
Read →Investment Readiness
Fundraising consultant or finance adviser: which do you actually need?
Founders preparing a round get approached by fundraising consultants, bankers, virtual CFOs and advisers who promise introductions. They do different jobs, get paid in different ways, and solve different problems.
Read →Investment Readiness
What is a quality of earnings review, and how do you prepare for one?
A quality of earnings review tests whether the profit a company reports is real, recurring and backed by cash. What it looks at, how the adjustments work, where Indian startups usually struggle, and how to prepare months before anyone asks.
Read →Investment Readiness
Why do GST credit mismatches surface in due diligence?
Diligence teams reconcile the GST input credit in your books, in your returns and in the government's system. Where the gaps come from, why investors treat them as liabilities, what changed with IMS and the July 2026 lock, and how to clean it up before a round.
Read →Investment Readiness
How much should we raise?
Most founders pick a number because a peer raised it or it sounds right for the stage. How to work it out from the milestones the round has to reach, the time the next raise will take, and a buffer for delays, then check it against dilution.
Read →Investment Readiness
How do you read cohort retention before an investor does?
A retention table is the first thing a Series A investor rebuilds from your raw data. What it shows, how to build one, and the four patterns that decide whether the round happens.
Read →Investment Readiness
How do you explain a bad month to your investors?
The instinct is to wait, soften it, or bury it in good news. All three cost more than the bad month did. What to send, when, and what turns a miss into a reason for confidence.
Read →Investment Readiness
What does anti-dilution protection actually do?
It does nothing at all until you raise at a lower price, and then it decides how much of the damage lands on the founders. Full ratchet against weighted average, worked through at real numbers.
Read →Investment Readiness
Which term sheet terms actually cost you money?
Valuation is the term founders negotiate and rarely the most expensive one. A ranking of the economic terms by what they are actually worth, and how to price each before you sign.
Read →Investment Readiness
What is the difference between ARR and revenue?
One is a run rate at a moment in time, the other is what you actually earned over a period, and they should never match. The reconciliation between them, and the four adjustments diligence always makes.
Read →Investment Readiness
What does net revenue retention have to be?
There is no Indian benchmark, the published figures are American and defined inconsistently, and the number still decides Series A conversations. What it measures, what to aim for, and how to move it.
Read →Investment Readiness
How do you run a board meeting?
Most early-stage board meetings are a two-hour presentation of things everyone could have read. What the meeting is actually for, how to get decisions out of it, and what to send beforehand.
Read →Investment Readiness
What do you do when you gave investors a wrong number?
You reported a figure, it turns out to be wrong, and correcting it is uncomfortable. Why the correction is almost always cheaper than the alternative, and exactly how to do it.
Read →