E-Commerce Financial Model for Startups

Description
This guide is an extremely detailed walk through of a bottom up financial model for e- commerce startups that is specifically designed for founders strategizing the launch of their new store or new operations getting off the ground. This model has been used to raise nearly $11.0 million for e-commerce startups in the last 24 months and is powerful enough to transition into an operational model that has been used to run 3 different e-commerce startups.

This is a battle hardened framework that has been put through the ringer of incubator programs like 500 Startups, through fundraising on Angel List, and to run circles around ‘hotshot’ bankers. The goal of this guide is to provide detailed background and analysis to establish a foundation, communicate how the model works, and empower you to.

This financial model was built to illustrate modeling methodology & logic flows as it relates to a web-only hard goods startup. The format is geared to transition into an operational guide for you to update with data as it becomes available & provide insight into the financial performance of your new firm. A word of caution for non-finance people (& hyper-detailed focused developers specifically) - you can get absorbed (sometimes on the verge of obsessive) into getting every number perfect and conducting a lot of data analysis. My advice - the inputs should be fairly conservative and general to reduce the friction of others (READ Investors). Additionally, a model can become hyper-addictive because you can put ALL the pieces together and clearly understand & see the impacts/results of changes / assumptions over time. You can spend hours breaking out the minutia, which is great for understanding your company (super important), but make sure that there is clear benefit for new insight into the firm by virtue of making these investments"

- Matt Caroll, 2014