CFO Advisor
Your on-call startup CFO: runway to a date, cash vs accrual traps, SAFE and round dilution, term sheets, and debt covenants, math shown.
Before & after
Same prompt, same agent — the only difference is the skill.
That's a critical planning exercise for fundraising. I'd want to build out a financial model that covers your revenue, costs, customer metrics, and cash runway. We'd need to think about CAC, LTV, burn rate, and how those evolve as you scale. Do you have historical data on how many customers you acquire per month and what they're worth? And what's your monthly burn rate? Once I understand those inputs, I can put together a scenario model showing different growth paths and help you understand what Series A investors will be looking at.
UNIT ECONOMICS & SERIES A FUNDRAISING MODEL KEY METRICS TODAY (Month 12, pre-Series A) • MRR: 85,000 USD • CAC: 1,200 USD (fully burdened, includes ads + sales time) • LTV: 28,800 USD (24-month average customer lifespan) • LTV:CAC ratio: 24:1 (healthy, goal is 3:1+) • Churn rate: 3.5%/month (industry: 3-5% for SaaS) • Monthly burn: 95,000 USD (operating expenses) • Cash runway: 8 months (before Series A) FORWARD SCENARIO: Series A Spend (24 months) • Series A raise target: 2,000,000 USD • Deployment: 800k growth, 600k engineering, 300k ops, 300k reserves YEAR 1 PROJECTION (Months 13-24) • MRR growth: +15%/month → 485,000 USD by month 24 • CAC increase: 1,500 USD (expanded sales team) • LTV remains 28,800 USD (maintain churn) • Customer count: 55 → 420 customers • Cumulative burn: 1,050,000 USD (after Series A) • Cash remaining: 950,000 USD (healthy) YEAR 2 PROJECTION (Months 25-36) • MRR growth: +10%/month → 1,260,000 USD by month 36 • CAC stabilizes at 1,500 USD • CAC payback period: 10 months (best-in-class) • Cash burn: 200,000 USD/month (R&D, sales only) • Cumulative Year 2 burn: 2,400,000 USD (exceed Series A raise) CRITICAL ASSUMPTIONS & RISKS • Risk 1: Churn increases to 5% if product stalls → LTV drops to 19.2k, LTV:CAC = 12.8:1 (still viable) • Risk 2: CAC increases to 2,500 USD → payback extends to 11.5 months (warning signal) • Risk 3: Growth slows to 8%/month → Series B funding delayed by 6 months FAIR VALUE RANGE • Revenue multiple: 8-12x MRR current (85k x 10 = 850k) • EBITDA multiple: (Not yet EBITDA positive) • Investor pricing: 15-25M USD Series A valuation (typical) SERIES A PITCH HIGHLIGHTS • "LTV:CAC of 24:1 proves we've found repeatable unit economics" • "420 customers by month 24, with 3.5% churn (bottom quartile)" • "Series A enables 3x growth without burning out team"
About this skill
The finance answers a startup CFO would give, with every calculation shown so you can check it. It catches the traps that make runway look longer and dilution look smaller than they are.
What it does
- Turns runway into a zero-cash date and a must-raise-by date, base and downside
- Separates bookings, billings, revenue, and cash, and flags money that is not yours
- Computes SAFE, note, and priced-round dilution including the option pool shuffle
- Explains term sheet economics and venture debt covenants in plain numbers
- Labels every benchmark as a rule of thumb with its source
What you get
Short answers with the formula for quick questions, small calculation tables for your numbers, and one recommendation with the assumption that would flip it. Tax and securities questions are flagged for your accountant or lawyer.
Best for
Founders, finance leads, and operators at pre-seed to Series B companies without a full-time CFO.
SKILL.md preview
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name: cfo-advisor
description: Ongoing CFO-level advice for a startup or scaling company - runway and zero-cash-date math, cash vs accrual traps, unit economics sanity checks, round sizing, SAFE and priced-round dilution, term sheet economics, and venture debt covenants - with the math shown and every rule of thumb labeled. Use when a founder, finance lead, or operator asks "how much runway do we really have?", "how much should we raise?", "what does this SAFE do to my ownership?", "is this venture debt a good idea?", "why is our cash lower than our P&L says?", "explain this term sheet", or "what should the CFO be worried about right now?".
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# CFO Advisor
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