Intuit says financial fitness is the key to funding
The idea is in place, as is its execution. The next big step for any entrepreneur then is funding. This is also the juncture where one, as part of the fund seeking exercise, has to convince an investor about the entity’s financial fitness.
For most entrepreneurs, the concept of financial fitness still remains unclear and often the biggest stumbling block for getting funding.
Intuit’s Marketing Head Bikash Chaudhary, and Head of Sales Aditi Puri conducted a workshop at the recently-concluded TechSparks 2017, focussing on the importance of financial fitness for an entity to get funding and stay on top of the game.
Bikash and Aditi, along with their team, began with asking participants what financial fitness meant to them. One participant said financial fitness to him meant being frugal and making sensible expenses.
Another said it was making decisions based on a clear understanding of the current situation and final goals one wants to achieve.
Simplifying the concept for the participants, Bikash and Aditi explained financial fitness was essentially being smart, organised and abreast with the company’s financial health.
With an exercise to explain the key concepts of net worth and cash flow, the duo explained the former as what one owes subtracted from what one owns, and cash flow as the money flowing out subtracted from the money flowing in.
If you owe more than you own, no VC would be interested in delving into the red, said Bikash.
They then listed out three steps all startup can utilise to achieve financial fitness.
The first, they said, was possessing the knowledge of basic concepts involved in achieving financial fitness. They discussed Net Worth and Cash Flow in detail with Aditi summing up the discussion saying “Cash matters a lot. If you run out of cash, nothing else matters. Cash is king”.
After spending some time elaborating flows and worth, the Intuit team said the second step was the implementation.
“Once you understand basic financial concepts, you need to put these financial processes to work,” said Bikash.
He added that keeping track of receivables was one way to implement processes that would lead one to financial fitness.
The third and crucial step in achieving financial fitness is to be smart while implementing financial processes.
Initially when you start, expenses will be higher than income and hence it is important to keep a rein on outgoes. You need to monitor that you are paying the right people at the right time, said Bikash.
The workshop closed with both Aditi and Bikash stressing on the fact that all entrepreneurs need to keep a tight check on their expenditure, while diligently tracking receivables so as to not only chart a part of financial discipline for the future but also to get investor attention.