About Pro-Forma
From Idea to Launch
Pro-Forma was founded to address one of the biggest weaknesses of startup planning and one of the most critical items founders need to successfully pass investor due diligence – a detailed and comprehensive financial pro-forma.
We set out to create a pro-forma that enables anyone – without accounting or finance expertise – to easily produce a very sophisticated set of reports that investors will love – from financial statements to capital raise term sheets to CLTV analysis to investor return analysis.
Our goal is to help you successfully launch and build out your vision.
The Story Behind Pro-Forma
I launched a SaaS firm in 1999, having raised $75m. With all of that capital, what could go wrong? Well, I was about to learn the most important lesson of my business career. The cash was quickly drained by scaling out of control and investing in expensive data center infrastructure (it was pre-AWS). When the dot com boom went bust, the company limped to an exit that did not return all of the capital to investors – a huge disappointment for everyone.
The lesson I learned was that I hadn’t carefully thought through my launch plan and was flying blind in terms of how much cash I really needed to raise, my breakeven timing, my burn rate, etc.
I went on to create the initial version of Pro-Forma as I planned my next SaaS startup, which enabled me to pass rigorous due diligence to raise the $12m I needed. That firm eventually exited with 67x returns for my investors that went the distance with me.
Over time, I continued to use and refine the financial model for many more startups, acquisitions, and investments before commercializing what eventually became Pro-Forma.
My hope is that Pro-Forma helps you avoid mistakes and enables you to be more successful as you raise capital and execute your plan.
