1Venture Capital Fans
Venture Capital : Spreadsheets for Start-Ups
One of the drawbacks in the mind of young entrepreneur is that you may feel that there is need to be trained or have certain qualifications to become an entrepreneur. In reality, entrepreneurship is an intrinsic ability in all of us, it’s an instinctive survival streak revealed to all commercially. Even more superficial is the belief that if you do not have a tough backbone, a guerrilla style of handling your business, you are not going to survive the stretch. It may have been true in the 80ties where our developing nation didn’t have a handle on the politics of money, but today it’s a different game, the kings of the business world are suave sophisticated go getters with passion and drive.
Passion and drive delivers success. Good entrepreneurship skills are not about having information, now cheaply provided by any computer console accessing the universe of knowledge provided by the internet. It’s about innovation that delivers impact measured in revenues, profits or improved process performance. Further, it’s not about money from your parents, that’s too small to knock around your big idea’s, it’s about angel investors and venture capitalist. It’s about presentation; it’s about knowing the answers, comprehending the risks and understanding the building blocks of a start up. All investors irrespective of background won’t trust you with all the money you need up front, common sensed minds will wait to see if the vision that looks so great on paper bears any resemblance to reality. Venture capitalist aim and think about investing in the reality of today, then watch you bend it to our expectations, functioning, taking the right risks and getting the promised exits.
Hence, to function effectively start-up’s need structure and teams running operations on a shoe string budget may have limited necessity to place these structures, yet there should be no excuse to not be aware of them. The following excel sheets would act as a starting point with the aim to give the mind some patterns to follow. When in need, your mind would be able to function and shortcut problems because you would able to perceive multiple solutions subjectively. Logic is a valuable asset, use it. However, at present these excel sheets are for the fans of this site (write in and request), primarily because I need speedy feedback to assess the functionality and viability of these building blocks. There would be many more spreadsheets to come in the hope that it would help you.
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Model |
Function |
Description |
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1 |
Template for Business financial analysis |
A model for the start-up businesses. Allows the generation of balance sheet, assets, liabilities and equity, sales and gross margin, working capital, purchase of goods, cost of goods, other changes effecting cash flow. Has breakeven calculated and you can create different scenarios to simulate the effects of cash flow into the businesses.
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2 |
Template for Cash flow |
Simple cash flow model inclusive of explanations of each cash flow component. Generates cash flow projection as forecast of cash funds with anticipation of receiving and paying through the course of a given span of time. Cash funds are defined as cash, or money order, paid out or received. Can be used to determine the pricing structure providing breakeven goals (including reasonable net profit).
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3 |
Template for Gantt chart |
Project management tool with work plan to illustrate the start and finish dates of the elements of a project. It clearly shows the dependency between activities.
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4 |
Template for Financial projections |
Financial model sheet for forecasting a complete set of financials with breakeven and valuation tabs. Model is designed to enable entrepreneur’s project the financial results of their ventures for a five year period. Generates income statement, balance sheet, cash flow statements, break even analysis and venture capital method of valuing companies.
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5 |
Template for Financial modelling |
A simple no frills financial model with income statements, balance sheet, revenue, gross margin and profit graphs, breakeven chart, detailed financial statements, sales projections and margin analysis for products in the company. Includes staffing plan, equipment purchases, manufacturing and inventory, rent and taxes with financing activities.
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6 |
Template for Financial projections (WACC) |
Spreadsheet model for generating projected financials along with valuation based on WACC |
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7 |
Template for Inventory control |
Spreadsheet for simulating inventory shortages, delivery times, costs, backorder and to maintain optimal inventory levels. Workbook allows you to simulate the inventory system via periodic review or in continuous review.
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8 |
Template for Business case ROI for IT projects. |
Spreadsheet to support the development of business cases for enterprise – scale information technology based projects. It provides a robust structure to help organizations assess the business value of technology base initiatives. Consultants and technology vendors can use it to articulate the business value of their products and solutions.
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9 |
Template for patent valuation. |
Simple and easy to use model to help assign value based on risk profiles to intellectual assets such as patents, copyrights and trademarks. Included are the royalty rates of each industry.
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10 |
Template for staff performance. |
Staffing/ training and monitoring toolkit for CEO’s to fill knowledge gaps. The model purpose is to identify performance challenges and determine if training or management changes are needed. Gives a bird eyes view to the organization capacity.
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11 |
Template for Risk return optimization |
Spreadsheet for optimal project selection with the aim to maximize the profit over risk ratio for the overall project portfolio subject to the constraints of the budget.
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12 |
Template for Project management |
Template to allow project managers, team members, sponsors and stakeholders to easily track and monitor project activities. Contains budget, cost benefit analysis, risks, issues, action, work breakdown structure, roster, roles and responsibilities, resource assignment matrix, resource commitment matrix, assumptions and constraints sheet, decision log, communication plan, stakeholders analysis, expectations, change control log, deliverable acceptance, PERT analysis, Delphi exercise, timesheets, Initial project size estimate, resource loading and quality metrics. Any of these sheets can be broken out into separate documents.
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13 |
Template for balance Scorecard |
Balance scorecard spreadsheet for the development of company or market strategy. Each strategic theme has an attached excel sheet where you can work out the dimensions that contribute to the objectives outlaid thorough a visual tree map.
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14 |
Template for a basic Start Up. |
Spreadsheet for financial model designed to organize financials for profit and loss, balance sheet, cash flows calculations for start-up companies. Entrepreneurs can set product volumes, overhead items, set paid in capital and other assets, product fundamentals, calendar periods, fixed assets, loans, etc.
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15 |
Template for financial Statements |
A very simple spreadsheet model to generate a set of financial statements using two input sheets – operational data and financial data. |
Last Updated (Friday, 17 February 2012 08:21)



