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The value of hard work and persistence
How to stay focused on long-term goals
How to learn from failures and setbacks
The Why?
To build a good forecast, you first need to define where the company is going and how you plan to get there.
Forecasting helps you and the rest of the team constantly answer the question: is what we're doing taking us where we want to go?
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MORE IDEAS ON THIS
Building a Revenue Forecast in Google Sheets
Before implementing automated tools, it's generally helpful to begin revenue forecasting with a simple, accurate spreadsheet model. Just make a copy of this template and follow along.
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Basic Forecasting Options
The most straightforward forecasting tools rely on the recent past to predict the future. The "straight-line" method uses historical revenue and growth trends to map high-level revenue expectations.
Start with your last six months of data and map out the next six months ba...
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2. From funnel to "new customer"
After mapping out your historical funnel data, analyze the formulas and how your conversion factors have moved over the past few months. Then, make your best guess what ratios are reasonable going forward.
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SaaS Revenue Forecasting
Any potential lender or investor will want to see a reliable revenue projection to gauge how likely you are to pay their money back (ideally at a large multiple).
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3. Revenue forecasting models
Get the number of new customers your marketing funnel will generate each month. Revenue from these customers flows into your new MRR, where we’ll pick up the second part of your revenue forecast.
Aside from attracting new customers, there are a few significant factors impacting MRR:
- ...
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4. Converting customers to MRR
We’ve effectively established the total number of customers we expect each month from the marketing funnel to our expectations for expansion, churn, and contraction. Using these figures and the average revenue per customer (ARPC) for each category, we can make a solid prognosis for MRR.
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1. Your funnel model
Start by mapping out your marketing funnel data and customer signup information. Understanding each funnel step and conversion rate helps you see the complete process behind your revenue generation.
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Maintaining Your Revenue Forecast
Once you’ve established your revenue forecasting formulas and the data relationships necessary to build your forecast, it’s simply a matter of refreshing the data and assumptions each month.
You’ll be able to copy your traffic and conversions data directly from your marketing funnel softwa...
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Creating a Revenue Model
- Your funnel model
- From funnel to "new customer"
- Revenue forecasting models
- Converting customers to MRR
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The Bottom Line
Revenue forecasting is essential, especially for SaaS businesses. Don’t wait until you’ve got an entire finance team ready or investors to satisfy to implement the most advanced cloud forecasting solutions. Getting started with a Google Sheets tool is massively better than not forecasting at all....
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CURATED FROM
IDEAS CURATED BY
ぬ-shaped person: Passionate learner having diverse interests. Tech entrepreneur. Obsessive optimizer. Uncomfortably skeptic and curious. Suffering from tsundoku.
Many founders treat revenue forecasting as a luxury, until suddenly, revenue forecasting becomes a necessity. This guide to SaaS revenue forecasting will walk you through building a revenue forecast.
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