Masterclass and panel · Global INcubation SERVices (GINSERV)

Building financial models for startups

A financial model that starts with numbers is a guess with formulas around it. Karthik's masterclass started a step earlier, with the business itself: what brings the money in, what each sale costs to deliver, and what a customer will pay.

The founders in the room were building in agri-tech, artificial intelligence, healthcare, clean-tech, construction-tech and ed-tech, so no template would have fitted all of them. The session worked through costing, pricing and projections instead, the parts that turn a founder's beliefs about the business into decisions they can defend.

It ended on a panel where startups pitched and the panel asked the questions an investor would. Karthik's point through both halves of the day: the strategy is the story, and the model is the proof that the story holds.