What's So Great About
Rocket Pro Forma?

You need a financial plan that's as awesome as your vision!

I’ve worked with thousands of entrepreneurs, and most of them are way better with customers than they are with numbers. Why?

Founders often have limited financial knowledge
Spreadsheets scare people
Assumptions change, so financials need constant updating
Investors ask you to test different assumptions

Even the founders who love spreadsheets can use a big head start—with a template that does the heavy lifting. Then they can focus on whatever needs tweaking.

Rocket Pro Forma is the tool I built to help myself quickly prepare financial projections for a wide range of startups. Now I'm making it available to you.

Innovation #1: Work Faster and Smarter
Does your spreadsheet look like this? Rocket Pro Forma has a wizard that walks you through entering your assumptions. You'll find yourself working quickly without getting overwhelmed. And you'll know that you won't have forgotten anything.

Innovation #2: Learn As You Go
Rocket Pro Forma is full of short instructional videos that walk you through the important concepts. It's like having a skilled instructor sitting with you as you prepare your financial projections!

Innovation #3: Skip the Little Boxes
It's much quicker to enter three years of assumptions using just a few numbers (vs. needing to enter 36 different monthly values...and then needing to change those 36 monthly values every time your assumptions change). This is the biggest blocker with all the other available financial models. Save yourself time and headache by choosing Rocket Pro Forma.

You still get all the little monthly boxes, but they're created for you—you're welcome!

Here's a video walkthrough of how easy it is to enter (and update) three years of assumptions >

Innovation #4: Focus Your Efforts
Rocket Pro Forma gives you three business models to choose from:

Transactions / Services (Virtual)
Physical Items with Manufacturing / Inventory
Subscriptions

Then it lets you feed them into each other. Physical items can feed subscriptions like Nest or Ring. Subscriptions can feed transactions like Amazon Prime memberships. Transactions can feed subscriptions like how some Uber riders purchase monthly Ride Pass subscriptions. You get the idea.

Innovation #5: Plan Wisely
All of your sales come from somewhere. I've seen incredibly smart people raise money based on imaginary sales that never materialize. This leads to disappointed investors. And bankruptcy.

Instead, Rocket Pro Forma gives you the following sales funnels:

Founders
Organic Site Traffic
Paid Ad Sales
Direct Sales
Channel / Affiliate Sales
(And any business model feeding any others)

And So Much More!
Rocket Pro Forma gives you incredible realism—with a simple interface:

Training of each new sales person along with ramp time to full quota.
Subscription churn, upgrades, and downgrades.
Manufacturing and inventory (Rocket Pro Forma will even optimize your production runs if you'd like).
A broad range of possible expenses. Even a quick glance will give you the mental framework to navigate toward a profitable future.
Multiple fundraising rounds and/or loans.
All of the accounting is handled for you, so your COGS are appropriate to your business model—and kept separate from your Operating and Capital Expenses.

Will Your Business Work?

About 50% of small businesses fail, according to the Small Business Association. Three out of four venture-backed startups don’t return investors’ capital, according to the Wall Street Journal.

And that was before Covid-19. Now it’s more important than ever to build—or pivot to—a profitable business model.

Can you find a scalable way to acquire customers? Can you make money doing it?

Well-crafted pro forma financial projections help you stay in business, avoid bankruptcy, and achieve your vision. They can also help you raise money, if that’s your goal. Either way, your financial projections are key to your success.

I used to build financial projections for entrepreneurs. Then I realized that I was often doing more harm than good—because founders weren’t learning what they needed to know. They were simply presenting my work to investors, but they didn’t understand it. Which meant that they couldn’t explain the numbers. Worst of all, they couldn’t update their pro forma financials as things evolved.

That’s when I started developing my Rocket Pro Forma spreadsheet.

The result? Founders quickly get a handle on their own numbers. Everybody wins!

Frequently asked questions

What kinds of businesses does this work best for?

The Rocket Pro Forma template works best for online businesses (which is perfect for our new Covid-19 world). You can mix and match the following business models: subscriptions, transactions, inventory, and manufacturing. Rocket Pro Forma is great for SaaS (software as a service), eCommerce and online stores (with or without inventory), online marketplaces, hardware / IoT devices with or without subscriptions. Here's a video walkthrough of how to choose your business models:

Is there a money back guaratee?

Yes! There is a 30-day unconditional money back guarantee. Simply contact us and we’ll refund your money with no questions asked.

Can't I just make my own spreadsheet?

Absolutely! I've made a ton of them. But I got tired of re-creating the wheel every time so I built this template that I can keep re-using. It's saved me a ton of time plus I make fewer mistakes (because spreadsheets have bugs just like software). Rocket Pro Forma also acts as a checklist so that I don't forget anything.

What isn't handled by Rocket Pro Forma?

I'm updating the spreadsheet all the time (see below for the change log). The next things on my to-do list are: - Taxes and depreciation - Burn rate - Allowing transactions to happen more than once per day and also less than once per month - Improve building out both sides of a marketplace business (sellers & buyers) - Upfront subscriptions payments for 2-years or more (Rocket Pro Forma currently handles monthly and annual subscriptions) - Curve calculator to project three years of sales and match to your sales funnels Things that Rocket Pro Forma probably won't handle any time soon: - More than three pricing tiers for any business model (you can use averages and/or add your own tab of you have more subscription tiers). - Detailed marketing breakdown by channel (you can use average spend, cost-per-click, and conversion ratios). - Expansion of multiple physical stores (I've done this in other models but haven't brought it into Rocket Pro Forma yet) - Portfolio management Rocket Pro Forma is powerful and I've been getting great feedback from the entrepreneurs who have used it. You're welcome to check it out and use the money-back guarantee if you're not satisfied.

Why three years?

The world is moving so quickly that it’s hard to plan even three years ahead. I used to do 5-year projections, but switched a decade ago and haven’t looked back.

How do I enter my assumptions?

Mostly by entering three values for year 1, year 2, and year 3 along with a growth rate. The Rocket Pro Forma template automatically does all the work filling out the 36 monthly cells for you. And then you can easily change your assumptions as needed. Here's a video walkthrough of how easy it is to enter (and update) three years of assumptions:

What is the format of the Rocket Pro Forma template?

It’s a Google spreadsheet. You can make your own copy and customize it to your business. The great thing about Google Sheets is that you can share them online. I often collaborate on financial models with entrepreneurs in real time.

Can I use Excel?

The short answer is no. The long answer is that I'm using Google-specific functions and I haven’t tried to open it in Excel in a long time (in fact, I like Google Sheets so much that I haven’t even installed Excel on my computer).

What if I’m afraid of spreadsheets?

I’ve designed Rocket Pro Forma to do all of the work for you, even if you hate spreadsheets. You simply enter your assumptions and you’ll automatically see a killer pitch deck slide plus income statement, cash flow statement, and balance sheet. Your accountant and your potential investors will all love you.

What if I’m awesome at spreadsheets?

Rocket Pro Forma is perfect for you! It does a lot of the heavy lifting, and then you can customize to your heart’s content. I’ve seen entrepreneurs and their hired guns do all kinds of cool extensions of the Rocket Pro Forma template.

How often do you update Rocket Pro Forma?

All the time! Here's the list of recent improvements: January 27, 2021 Updated Nav Bar in row 1 of Assumptions tab to dynamically adjust hyperlinks based on which biz models are active. Pitch Deck Slide now automatically shows correct third key metric when Subscriptions is set as primary and either Transactions or Units is secondary. January 25, 2021 Tier 2 and Tier 3 COGS for Units now enable / disable properly in the Assumptions tab. Limited input for number of months in Batched manufacturing to an integer number of months in Units COGS section of the Assumptions tab (because this model doesn't support days / partial months). Bottom-up Ad Sales now properly reflects year 3 ad spend in all instances. January 4, 2021 Income Statement COGS for Transactions now updates correctly for all tiers when Marketplace is active. December 23, 2020 Added a few new options to Pitch Deck Slide customization of Key Metrics 2 and 3: Gross Merchandise Values (for Marketplace models) and Global CAC. "None" option for Pitch Deck Slide now blanks out Key Metric 2 and/or 3. "<auto>" option is now the default that automatically adjusts based on the selected revenue model(s).</auto> Added dates to all appropriate fields in Assumptions tab (Month X of Year Y) to translate from 1 to 36 moths into easily understandable English. Adjusted Transaction / Marketplace sales via Channel Partners in Y2 and Y3 of Customers tab line 38 to properly reflect Start Month for Seller Acquisition by Partners from line 678 of Assumptions tab Cleaned up Marketplace language around Buyers, Sellers, and Listings vs. Transactions on Assumptions and Customers tabs. Avg Transaction Amount in Cost of Sales for Transactions section of Assumptions tab now shows correct amounts when Marketplace model is active for all 3 tiers. Adjusted CAC Spend if You're Only Using Top-Down Sales Targets in line 13 of Customers tab to turn itself off when Bottom-Up Sales are activated. Adjusted Transactions Key Metric in Pitch Deck Slide to display Marketplace transactions regardless of whether Buyers or Sellers are paying the transaction fees. Moved Website Traffic Assumptions into its own section on the Assumptions Tab. Updated Use of Funds tab to automatically use # of months to break-even reported at top of Financing Tab. Added option to Use of Funds tab to Break Out Salaries Separately or not. November 22, 2020 PUBLISHED NOV 22, 2020 Adjusted three tiers to reflect retail price rather than GMV in quick margin calculations in Unit COGS section of Assumptions tab. November 19, 2020 PUBLISHED NOV 19, 2020 Adjusted Website customer calculator in Bottom-Up Sales Funnels section of Assumptions tab to properly reflect Website conversion ratio. November 17, 2020 // PUBLISHED NOV 17, 2020 Adjusted Payment Processing Costs in Unit Economics for Transactions in Dashboard tab to gracefully handle instances where # of Transactions = zero. Adjusted Payment Processing Costs in Unit Economics for Transactions in Dashboard tab to automatically gray out when Payment Processing Costs = zero for all three years. Adjusted Lifetime Revenue per Customer for Unit Economics for both Transactions and Units to properly reflect the # of Purchases over an average customer's lifetime. November 9, 2020 // PUBLISHED NOV 10, 2020 Fixed issue where Operating Expenses line of Pitch Deck Slide could show negative numbers under certain circumstances. Added Advanced Settings for App Store section to Assumptions tab so you can now apply App Store commissions to specific biz models (Transactions, Units, and / or Subscriptions) Units biz model now incorporates "Avg # of Units Purchased per Retail Transaction" from Assumptions tab into inventory planning for each Tier. Updated Implied Acquisition Value section of Financing tab to let you choose between EBITDA and Revenue when entering a multiple to calculate exit price. Adjusted Exit Multiple and IRR calculations section in Financing tab to only use cash flow (vs. EBITDA in previous version). Added hidden year 4 and year 5 columns to FInancing tab to evaluate Acquisition Value and Exit Multiple for those years. Consolidated Exit Multiple & IRR Calculation into one section with checkbox to include / exclude Acquisition Value. Subsections of "Step 2: Using Primary Biz Model(s) as Source of Sales for Other Biz Model(s)" section of Assumptions tab now gray out properly depending on which biz models are active. November 6, 2020 Fixed issue where Operating Expenses line of Pitch Deck Slide could show negative numbers under certain circumstances. Fixed issue where entering zero for CPC or CVR would cause #DIV errors. Added Global CAC section to Dashboard tab. Updated Transactions and Units pricing sections of Assumptions tab to reflect global CAC. Updated Subscription Per Customer Unit Economics calculations in Assumptions Tab to reflect global CAC. Fixed issue where Quick Ratio in Dashboard tab would occasionally display giant numbers. November 5, 2020 Key Metric #2 of Pitch Deck Slide no longer displays FALSE under certain circumstances. Credit card charges can now be assigned to COGS—only if 1) the box is checked and 2) % of sales with credit card fees is set to 100% for all 3 years. Added legal disclaimer to Navigation tab. Added more how-to videos to the Assumptions tab (Ad & Data biz model, Marketplace biz model, virtual COGS, physical COGS, and one-time & annual OpEx) Gave Website traffic it's own home in the Assumptions tab that's separate from whether the Website drives sales (because website traffic now also drives Marketplace and Ads / Data biz models). Gave Website sales their own 3-year CVC settings that are now separate from Paid Ads 3-year CVR settings. November 3, 2020 Marketplace tiers now gray out for years before they become active. November 2, 2020 Direct Sales Commissions are now calculated as a positive number on the income statement. Subscription revenue recognized from Direct Sales now properly account for tier 2 and tier 3 Subscriptions in all instances. October 29, 2020 Transactions are now displayed correctly in Pitch Deck Slide for all combinations of Marketplace biz model settings. Adjusted calculation of Accounts Receivable for Subscriptions to no longer include Deferred Revenue. Rebuilt the way that the Cash Flow Statement handles Accounts Payable so that rent and salaries are always paid in the month they're due vs. other expenses for which payment can be delayed. October 27, 2020 Added line for Ad & Data Sales + Hourly Billing to hidden breakout of Revenue detail. Adjusted how total revenue is calculated on the Income Statement in order to better reflect all revenue streams. October 26, 2020 Updated Cash Flow Statement to properly account for new employee furniture / computer purchases in Year 1. October 23, 2020 Updated Transactions business model to properly handle repeat customers when Transactions is not the primary business model. Updated Units business model to properly handle repeat customers when Units is not the primary business model. October 22, 2020 Updated Hiring tab to allow discounted salaries for a certain # of starting months (an improvement from previous all-or-nothing functionality). Adjusted green indicators in Hiring Tab column D to preform better when either column B or C is deleted (vs. set to zero). Adjusted Transactions line in Pitch Deck Slide to better handle Buyers driving transactions in a Marketplace business model. Added Fulfillment and Distribution to G&A section of Operating Expenses. October 21, 2020 Updated Pitch Deck Slide to better handle customized names of Buyers and Sellers in Key Metrics for Marketplace business model. Updated Pitch Deck Slide to properly credit cash flow for Batched (pre-paid) inventory vs. Just In Time / Drop Shipped inventory (added a new section on the Cash Flow Statement to track this). October 20, 2020 Updated NPV calculation in Financing tab to reflect cash flows instead of simply EBITDA. Updated the Change in Work in Progress Inventory on the Cash Flow Statement to reference the correct cells on the Income Statement. Updated Transactions section starting in row 4 of Cash Flow Statement to properly reflect cash in from Top Down Sales Targets. Updated Units section starting in row 44 of Cash Flow Statement to properly reflect cash in from Top Down Sales Targets. October 19, 2020 Updated Customers tab to turn off appropriate inputs when Bottom Up Sales is disabled. Updated Marketing Spend on Channel Partners per Month line 297 of Income Statement to more accurately reflect settings in Assumptions tab. Updated Retail & Wholesale Margin calculations for Tier 2 Units on Assumptions tab to reflect the proper COGS. Updating hiring spend (desk + computer) to properly calculate per-hire spend in Year 1. Updated Paid Ad spend to properly calculate in situations where start month was greater than 12. October 16, 2020 Added Fulfillment Expenses to Assumptions tab, with calculations added to Customers and Income Statement tabs (Amazon & Other / Shopify) Moved Credit Card Expenses into Selling Expenses on Assumptions tab and Income Statement October 13, 2020 Adjusted available Buyer calculations in Marketplace model to more accurately reflect churned Buyers. Adjusted Marketplace Transactions from Buyers to properly reflect # of newly onboarded Buyers each month in situations where Buyers are driving Marketplace transactions. October 8, 2020
Marketplace now supports flat fee per transaction (in addition to % fee per transaction).
Adjusted line 22 of Pitch Deck Slide to properly display revenue from Marketplace transactions.
Deleted 5 hidden sheets for older versions of Pitch Deck Slides.
Hidden revenue detail on Pitch Deck Slide now dynamically adapts when Marketplace is active.
Adjusted Cash Flow Statement to properly account for Marketplace fees. October 7, 2020
You can now choose whether Sellers or Buyers drive the transactions in your Marketplace, which can make a big difference in the number of transactions.
Made the Pitch Deck Slide more resilient so you can now change the names of the Key Metrics in cells C4, C14, and C16.
Adjusted Revenue Growth % calc in Y4 and Y5 of Pitch Deck Slide to properly refer to Revenue line.
Adjusted 2nd and 3rd Key Metrics for Y4 and Y5 in Pitch Deck Slide to automatically disappear if one or both isn't being used.
Adjusted Start Month for Marketplace to solve a potential error in some situations where the Transactions business model was disabled.
Adjusted Pitch Deck Slide to properly count Buyers, Sellers, and Transactions for Marketplace configurations.
Adjusted "Active Sellers - Tier 2 & 3 (Incl. Newly Onboarded)" line 594 and 595 of Customers tab to properly include newly onboarded Sellers.
Adjusted "Monthly Budget to Acquire Buyers" line 606 of Customers tab to properly reflect Y2 and Y3 budget set in line 285 of Assumptions tab.
Adjusted "Total Revenue Recognized" line 86 of Income Statement to include Marketplace revenue under all circumstances. October 5, 2020 Adjusted Navigation tab to include Top Down Paid Ads to Close Gap for summaries of all three business models. Set MKT_Active to also include if Transactions business model is active. Added "Inventory - Work in Progress" to Balance Sheet to better capture manufacturing batches that have been started but not completed. Updated "Change in Inventory (COGS)" line 130 of Cash Flow Statement to include new "Inventory - Work in Progress" subtotal. Updated "Cash at Start of Period*" line 52 of Pitch Deck Slide to properly reflect starting cash for Q2, Q3, and Q4. October 1, 2020 First version of Marketplace functionality! You can turn Marketplace on / off inside of the Transactions business model. Updated Cash Flow Statement to reflect Change in Accounts Receivable across new Marketplace and Ad / Data income streams. Added small green lights to Hiring Tab to show if each position has been hired at some point in 3 years—makes it easier to read at a glance. Updated Pitch Deck Slide to label Year 4 and Year 5 to match Years 1, 2, and 3. Added Sellers and Buyers as optional key metrics on Pitch Deck Slide to support the new Marketplace functionality. September 29, 2020 Updated Customers tab to properly reflect Y2 and y3 "Ad Spend per Month" from Assumptions tab. Updated Navigation tab to point to the new Pitch Deck Slide. Naming Transactions & Units now handle plurals for words that end in "y". September 21, 2020 Added credit card per-transaction flat fee to Assumptions tab, to handle 30 cents + 2.7%. Also created new "# of Purchases Counter" section in Customers tab to add up all transactions per month. Updated "Trials from Ads to Close Gap" in hidden section of Pitch Deck Slide to properly reflect annual totals. Added ability to decide whether 1) new + existing customers or 2) only new customers drive secondary business models. This can have a large effect on # of sales fo rthose secondary business models. September 15, 2020 Updated Pitch Deck Slide to better handle blank entries for Key Metric #2 and Key Metric #3 Assumptions tab now grays out sections for years that aren't relevant—in order to declutter and make things easier for users to understand. September 14, 2020 Consolidated Pitch Deck Slide into one tab (it used to be six separate tabs) Pitch Deck Slide now automatically customizes itself based on the business models you choose. Pitch Deck Slide now has an option to override key metric #2 and key metric #3 to your choice. Pitch Deck Slide now offers year 4 and year 5 with adjustable growth rates via a hidden group along the top. Adjusted returns and allowances to properly reflect Tier 2 and Tier 3 as negative numbers in Customers tab, Income Statement, and Pitch Deck Slide. September 3, 2020 Added "Ads / Data Revenue" to Assumptions tab, so you can now monetize both your customers and your website visitors. Also updated Income Statement and Cash Flow Statement accordingly. Updated Cash Flow Statement to better reflect accounts payable for monthly and annual subscriptions. Also updated Customers tab to support. September 2, 2020 Updated Unit COGS to better handle zero-month lead times and 0-month batching (same as selecting Just-In-Time or Dropship options for Unit COGS). Added "Skip Sales Quota" to Hiring Plan Column G which allows you to exclude certain sales people from selling the quota (to more accurately model complex sales teams). Added "Free Months at Start" to Hiring Plan for founders and other early employees who will work for free for an initial period. Updated Basic Salary Subtotals section in Hiring Tab to accurately reflect total salaries in four categories: COGS, S&M, R&D, and G&A. August 21, 2020 Added starting cash in bank to total invested before this model starts in Financing Tab Updated exit multiple on Financing Tab August 17, 2020 Upgraded Top Down Sales Targets to better handle repeat customers Updated Investment & Financing* line in all Pitch Deck Slides to not include loan payments (cash out) August 2, 2020 Updated Units assumptions to reflect Avg # of Units Purchased per Retail Transaction for each tier Updated Units assumptions to reflect Y2 and Y3 discounts for Tier 2 and Tier 3 Avg # of Months to Repeat Purchase must now be set between 1 and 37 months (setting it to zero months would create an infinite loop) Repeats now feed back into the # of customers from which to calculate future repeat sales, since existing repeats are most likely to repeat again July 24, 2020 Published a major upgrade with intelligence to automatically map out your sales and revenue plan via Top-Down Targets You can also map out a Bottom-Up Sales Strategy to achieve your Top-Down Targets, and you can close any gap with Paid Ads. July 23, 2020 Upgraded return calculations for Units Adjusted renewal period for annual subscriptions by one month in "Churn for Subscriptions" section of Customers tab Adjusted trial to subscription conversions from Direct Sales and Channel Partners by one month in "New Subs Channel Partner Commissions & Cash Flow Calc" section of Customers tab Moved previous cash invested by founders into Financing tab (from Assumptions tab) July 20, 2020 Disabling Tier 3 Units now grays out both buinsess model and COGS assumptions Fixed inventory prediction engine for manufacturing batches that start after month 1 Activating human override now grays out inventory prediction engine for all three tiers of Units. July 16, 2020 Base Case, Best Case, and Worst Case scenarios in Dashboard tab now handle zero revenue years more gracefully. Updated the way the Assumptions tab calculates CAC for subscriptions without trials. Updated the way Office Build-Out in CapEx flows through to the Cash Flow Statement. Updated Sheet Protection of Changelog tab so that people can delete it if they want. July 14, 2020 Fixed % of new customers allocated across 3 tiers for Services, Units, and Subscriptions business models. July 13, 2020 Moved hourly billing FTEs to bottom of Hiring Plan tab to reduce confusion. Added bottom-up sales funnel in Assumptions tab (which is calculate in Customer tab) Made Hiring Plan tab more resilient when adding and removing rows Hiring Plan tab now alerts with red box when Cost Type isn't present in Column H, which often happen when people create new rows in the Hiring Plan tab. Removed unused Range Names from Hiring Plan tab Fixed annualized revenue per employee calculation in Hiring Plan tab Assumptions tab now lets you assign one-time purchase of computer and furniture for new hires to either OpEx (default) or CapEx July 10, 2020 Fixed the formatting of the Assumptions tab including moving notes out of input boxes and greying out sections as they are disabled. Added Waitlist funnel # of sales + revenue to all 6 pitch deck slides Set all waitlists to zero for all tiers of all 3 business models July 7, 2020 Income statement now ignores batched manufacturing for Tier 2 and Tier 3 units if they are disabled. June 29, 2020 Fixed more totals for pitch deck slides to solve for weird bug in Google Sheets that occasionally shows #REF errors even though the formulas are correct #stupidgoogle Added waitlist sales to Cash Flow Statement for Services and Units Added checkbox to turn on / off trials for subscriptions & re-wired Customers tab to respond accordingly (if there isn't a trial then everyone who would've been a trial converts to paid at 100%) June 17, 2020 Fixed plurals for customized vocab for Transactions and Units business models in multiple locations across all tabs. June 16, 2020 Now correctly caculate COGS for Units biz model in Income Statement Now correctly caculate COGS for Units biz model in all Pitch Deck Slides June 15, 2020 Now show "Investment & Financing" by default in Pitch Deck Slides to make it easier to understand where $ is coming from and how much $ your company needs to raise for this plan Now calculate all Pitch Deck Slides using Named Ranges in order to avoid summing bug in Google Sheets Adjusted some Capital Expenses to appear as negative values on the Cash Flow Statement, in order to accurately represent cash flow Adjusted Cash Out for Operations line of all Pitch Deck Slides to reflect Accounts Payable length June 10, 2020 Added on/off checkbox for Startup Costs > Operating Expenses (OpEx) Added on/off checkbox for Startup Costs > Capital Expenses (CapEx) Adjusted cash flow calculations for Startup Costs > Capital Expenses (CapEx) June 9, 2020 Added 3-Year Summary to Income Statement Added 3-Year Summary to Cash Flow Statement Added 3-Year Summary to Balance Sheet Adjusted booking calculations (net to your company) for sales of subscriptions by channel partners to more accurately account for sales commissions to channel partners. Prepaid Expenses are now properly accounted for on Cash Flow Statement Adjusted quota calculation for direct sales teams that don't require training or ramp to quota Adjusted calculation of repeat customers for Transactions and Units to reflect customizable year 2 and year 3 settings Adjusted calculation of customers coming into Transactions and Units from other biz models to reflect adjustable year 2 and year 3 settings June 8, 2020 Added waitlist functionality for both Services and Units. Customers from waitlist will be added and charged the first month that each tier becomes available. Fixed an issue where start month for tier 2 and 3 of Units was tied to start months of Transactions. Broke out recognized revenue per tier for Channel sales for Services, Units, and Subscriptions in Customer tab—to correct issue where channel commission were not being subtracted. June 6, 2020 % of tier 3 subscribers is now calculated correctly (was using % of tier 2 subscribers for tier 3 instead) Reversed Accounts Payable to properly calculate cash flow June 3, 2020 Added hourly billing as a new biz model / revenue stream to Hiring Plan, Customers tab, Income Statement, and Cash Flow Statement Removed OpEx and CapEx Hooks from Customers tab Changed name of Start Here tab to Assumptions tab (now that you "Start Here" on the Navigation tab) June 1, 2020 Updated calculation of subscribers at end of period in Monthly Subscription Pitch Deck Slide Removed script for naming ranges Fixed issue with custom start month set in Start Here tab (needed to update row 3 of Hiring Tab) Fixed OpEx subtotals in expansion groups. for all six pitch deck slides May 29, 2020 Updated calculation of Investment & Financing in quarterly pitch deck slides May 26, 2020 Created new Customers Tab out of existing Hooks tab. Simplified Income Statement Tab by moving all customer calculations into Customers Tab. Fixed issue where entering start month of zero for pricing tiers could case REF error. Added OpEx salaries into Navigation tab to make it more intutive to get the full picture of operating expenses by category. May 22, 2020
Changed the name of this spreasheet to Rocket Pro Forma (why didn't I think of that sooner lol)
Added "Next" buttons to Navigation tab to simplify the user experience.
Added a table of contents to the Navigation tab to orient users and make it easier for them to jump around the spreadsheet.
Dashboard section covering Accounts Payable Days now handles AP = 0 correctly. May 21, 2020
Made Organic and Paid Ad sales funnels much easier to use.
Combined CVRs (conversion rates) for website Organic and Paid Ad sales funnels into one number (vs. separate CVRs for Transactions, Units, and Services). May 15, 2020 Added Dashboard tab with common metrics and KPIs to evaluate the projected financials incl. accounts receivable days, accounts payable days, operating expense measures as % of revenue, inventory turns, simple breakeven calcualtions, working capital, quick ratio Added more How To videos Changed Subscription calculations to End of Period in Pitch Deck Slide (both Quarterly and Monthly) May 14, 2020 Implemented first version of upgrading from an old version of Rocket Pro Forma to a new one. Formatted Start Here and Finance Tabs to match new Navigation Tab interface Average expense per employee to all Pitch Deck Slides (3 quarterly + 3 monthly) May 12, 2020 Added Accounts Receivable for Annual Subscriptions (and left a hook for AR for Monthly Subscriptions if needed, but thinking that Monthly Subs will pay up front via credit card) May 11, 2020 Added Accounts Payable (in months) for better cash planning and management. Enter in Start Here tab. Changes are reflected in Cash Flow Statement and Balance Sheet. Adjusted some calculations on Balance Sheet to recalculate Shareholders' Equity Pitch Deck Slides - Added average (operating) expense per employee Unit sales through partners now factor in AR # of months partners take to pay (in addition to standard AR from customers) Added concept of Outstanding CapEx to delay payment on purchases of Equipment, Tooling, and Other CapEx Added checkbox in Start Here to "Allow Upgrades and Downgrades Between Subscription Tiers?" May 8, 2020 All 6 Pitch Deck Slides now show a more friendly cash tracker at the bottom (cash in and cash out per period) Added cash from other biz model sales funnels to Services and Units in the Cash Flow Statement Months and Years can now be customized to either be generic (Mo 1 of Year 1) or start the financial projections on a specific month of a specific year (Apr of 2021) May 7, 2020 Updated inventory calculation in Balance Sheet to include all three tiers of Unit sales. May 6, 2020 Added start month for office rent + security deposit that is accounted for on Cash Flow Statement and Balance Sheet as a prepaid expense Cinco de Mayo, 2020 Updated Navigation tab with instructions and dynamic activation of selected business models Manufacturing batches can now be manually overridden in Hooks tab Start Here tab now accepts # of units for manufacturing runs (used to be dollar value, which was more difficult to work with) Added Other category to CapEx purchases (to provide more flexibility) CapEx can now be manually overridden in Hooks tab. Also fixed calculations for years 2 and 3. May 4, 2020 Added Navigation tab to guide user through the customization process Fixed sales funnel flow for multiple business models active at once Fixed greying out / decativation for inactive business models Added calculation for # of units manufactured for Batched inventory May 1, 2020 Moved naming for Service and Unit terminology above menu to choose main biz model (vs. below where it was confusing because it causes the menu to turn red). Now smarter about guessing plurals for Service and Unit terminology that ends in "s" (like Class / Classes) April 30, 2020 Fixed bug in Transactions Pitch Deck Slide where quarterly sales (Q2, Q3, Q4) weren't being calculated properly April 27, 2020 Units- Updated COGS calculations for pricing tiers 2 and 3 April 23, 2020 Improved inventory prediction engine for Units April 22, 2020 Units - Added three pricing tiers and matching COGS Units - Added discount % for all three tiers April 21, 2020
Services - Added three pricing tiers and matching COGS
Services - Added discount % for all three tiers April 17, 2020 Reorganized Hooks and Income Statement tabs to be easier to understand by placing Sales Funnels above sales from other business models (matching order of Start Here tab) Fixed issue where Service sales were starting one month too late + Services cash was being received one month too late Fixed issue where Unit sales were starting one month too late + Units cash was being received one month too late Changed Services to only be driven by new Unit sales excluding repeat customers (since repeat Unit customers are already accounted for by repeat Service customers) Changed Units to only be driven by new Service sales excluding repeat customers (since repeat Service customers are already accounted for in repeat Unit customers Fixed issue where Subscription sales were starting one month too late + Subscription cash was being received one month too late Fixed Services and Units customers becoming customers for Subscriptions Changed Subscriptions to only be driven by new Service and Unit sales excluding repeat customers (since repeat Service and Unit customers may already have Subscriptions) Verified that Subscriptions to only be driven by Service and Unit sales from Subscribers instead of Trials (since non-paying customers probably won't buy Services or Units either) April 16, 2020 Your primary sales funnel can now drive customers to one or both of the other business models (was previously limited to hardware driving subscriptions) Added visualization of complete multi-stage sales funnel in Start Here tab April 15, 2020 Sales funnels now drive customers to a single business model, which you can choose if you have more than one business model active This fixed sales funnels duplicating customer acquisition across multiple biz models (when multiple biz models are activated) April 14, 2020 Let users customize vocabulary for transactions / services Let users customize vocabulary for hardware / units / widgets / devices / IoT April 13, 2020 Adjusted hardware retail price by App Store / Marketplace charges to account for Amazon or other. Created "Avg $ Received per Retail Sale (Minus Marketplace Fees)" in Start Here April 7, 2020 Upgraded all three pitch deck slides to new clearner quarterly format for year one. The old versions still exist as Slide M at the end of the tabs. Restored subscriptions from unit sales in both Income Statement and Pitch Deck-Hardware tabs. April 3, 2020 Implemented upgrades and downgrades between subscription tiers in Income Statement (set and adjust in Start Here > Subscription Assumptions) Stare Here now displays profitability of each subscription tier user using LTV vs. ad funnel CAC April 1, 2020 Corrected annual churn calculations in Income Statement to properly start on month 1 of year 2 (for Tiers 1, 2, and 3) February 21, 2020 Created Hooks tab and linked to important rows in Income Statement—Allowing people to more easily hook their own calculations and tabs into this financial model Fixed rounding for subscription calculations of Direct and Channel sales commission on Income Statement tab Removed starting # of trials from waitlist from hardware subscription funnel, since you can't sell more subscriptions than the number of hardware devices you sell February 13, 2020 Added detail on trials, churn, revenue, and other income to collapsable groups in Slide—Transactions Added detail on trials, churn, revenue, and other income to collapsable groups in Slide—Hardware Added detail on trials, churn, revenue, and other income to collapsable groups in Slide—Subscription Add returns line to revenue section of pitch deck slide February 7, 2020 Added repeat customer revenue to total unit revenue in Income Statement (line 97) Adjusted graying out in sections of Income Statement depending on active business model(s) + founders who sell from Start Here tab January 30, 2020 Fixed exit $ on Financing slide to be 10x Post-Money Valuation (instead of Pre-Money Valuation) Checked to make sure that all %s are formatted as %s in input boxes in Start Here, Hiring, and Financing tabs Changed order of Organic and Ad Sales transaction and hardware sales in Income Statement Slide—Transactions: Broke out details of transactions, revenue, COGS, OpEx, and Cash Flow all in collapsable sub-groups January 29, 2020 Adjusted loan tracker at bottom of Cash Flow Statement to no longer track payments for loans if they've been turned off in the Finance tab. January 28, 2020 Updated subcategories of Implied Monthly Revenue per Sales Person in Start Here tab to zero out if that specific business model / subscription is deactivated. No longer add Pre-Existing Loan Amount Outstanding from Start Here tab to current cash in Cash Flow Statement, since it may already have been spent. Users should include all available cash in Current / Starting Cash in Bank. January 22, 2020 Fixed One-Time App Purchases per Support Rep in Income Statement to only calculate when new support reps are hired. Solved remaining negative batched inventory problem by adjusting to truly look 7 months in advance starting with next month (vs. look 7 months including current month) Added drop ship option to Inventory / Manufacturing Approach in Start Here (which will work the same as Just In Time manufacturing). Adjusted Drop Ship & Just In Time inventory to calculate correctly January 16, 2020 Put Direct Sales before Channel on all tabs, to match order in both Start Tab and business planning Implemented cash flow calculations on Income Statement for all sales funnels for both Transaction and Unit sales Updated Cash Flow tab sections for both Transaction and Unit sales based on new calculations on Income Statement Implemented "How long do customers take to pay" for Unit Sales Matched COGS to sales in Income Statement Fixed issue with batched inventory where manufacturing runs were hard-coded to 6-month intervals. Now calculated dynamically. January 15, 2020 Added more Year 1, Year 2, and Year 3 headings to Start Here tab + reorganized rows to be more intuitive with new headings. January 14, 2020 Included direct sales in calculation of total services transactions per month. January 11, 2020 Fixed handling of error in loan tracker at bottom of cash flow statement when there's no initial loan. Also hid loan tracker section at bottom of cash flow statement by default to reduce confusion. January 9, 2020 Fixed handling of deferred annual subscription revenue on the cash flow statement, which has a substantial positive effect on cash available. January 6, 2020 Updated Implied Monthly Revenue per Sales Person in line 178 of Start Here tab to include Services, Hardware, and Tiers 1 to 3 of Subscription December 11, 2019 Implemented grouped rows instead of hidden in Income Statement Now ROUNDing annual churn (was accidentally getting decimals before for number of users churning) Annual churn now using years 2 and 3 for all three subscription tiers December 11, 2019 Added estimated # of units to be produces in hardware section of COGS in Start Here tab November 13, 2019 Fixed Other Revenue formula in Income Statement in years 2 and 3 (line 259) Added Year 1, Year 2, and Year 3 headings throughout Start Here tab to improve comprehension November 1, 2019 Fixed formula for growth in organic site visits August / September / October 2019 Added three pricing tiers for subscriptions Fix # of churned annual subscribers to not allow cancel before 12 months Fix start month of # of New Trials from Channel Partners Add founders as sales people Hardware units sold in slide is now per period (rather than cume) Added inventory / COGS for both "Batched" and "Just-in-Time" approaches Fix cash flow of inventory (Start Here b191 + cash flow statement + COGS section of income statement) Implement returns for hardware Fix avg months til payment received from channel: All 3 years need to have one delay otherwise you'll double-count Clean out named ranges Add founder sales funnel to services + manufacturing in Income Statement Fix cash position without financing to fully exclude financing Figure out AR in Cash Flow statement Add loan section Fix CapEx on cash flow statement Handle separate app store (tie into services / marketplace) Fix COGS on income statement to properly zero out JIT vs. Batched if not being used Fix CapEx on balance sheet Add backorders Clean up balance sheet Factor loan cash into IRR calculations (Financing Tab) Factor exit price into IRR calculations (Financing Tab) Double-check hardware subscriptions Move comments out of active areas in Start Here tabs Add repeat customers for hardware Handle drop-shipping via services / transactions? Handle COGS for services appropriately (drop ship / eCommerce model) Fix highlighted items in Start Here and Financing tabs Fix investment analysis so that it properly tracks first investment round Monthly churn happens on the cumulative amount and not the monthly amount. Handle installation / setup fee for subscriptions sold by channel partners and direct sales Fix sales commissions (direct sales) Fix all conditional formatting on non-editable tabs Hide all unnecessary rows in worksheets Add deferred revenue to balance sheet Fix all conditional formatting on 3 input tabs 1/25/2019 Added Cash Flow tab Implemented Accounts Receivable using # of months til payment for transaction and unit sales Now subtract commissions to channel from services to get to effective wholesale price Removed Avg Months Customers Take to Pay in years 2 and 3. Only use Year 1 to prevent double-counting. Removed Avg Months til Payment Received from Channel in years 2 and 3. Only use Year 1 to prevent double-counting. 1/17/2019 Added Balance Sheet tab 12/27/2018 Fleshed out Cash Flow Statement (at bottom of Income Statement) 11/19/2018 Fixed COGS and LTV in Assumptions > Subscription KPIs to more correctly reflect Cost of Sales 11/14/2018 Direct sales now follow quotas for years 2 and 3 (previously all 3 years were based on year 1 quota) Paid ads now translate properly to subscriptions (it was too high before) Marketing spend per channel is now multiplied by number of channels in S&M Expenses Software / App Subscriptions + Google Apps now multiply by headcount in G&A Expenses 3/29/2018 Updated sales to include ramp, so it takes each sales person a few months to get up to speed. Revised sales commission to be calculated properly for sales team Allow extra sales commission on a % of sales revenue (just in case) Added up front / start / installation fees for subscriptions

Which kinds of business doesn't this work for?

This wasn't designed for real estate, investment portfolios, television or movie production, or physical retail with lots of stores.

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