About the Event

Deep Dive into Startup Finance

About the Workshop

The course is taught by Sultan Ventures’ & XLR8UH Angel-in-Residence Peter Rowan. In his previous career, Peter was Corporate Vice President, New Ventures at Coinstar from 2001-2010. During his tenure, the company grew from $150 million to $1.3 billion in revenue, entered new lines of business and introduced innovative growth initiatives like its DVD kiosks, money transfer, and e-payment programs. At Coinstar, Peter led more than 20 acquisitions, investments and divestitures, including its investment in Redbox. Peter has taught entrepreneurship, finance, and new venture strategy since 2005.

Course Content

Unit Economics

Unit economics are the direct revenues and costs associated with a particular business model expressed on a per unit basis.  Unit economics looks at the direct revenues and costs associated with the most basic element of a company’s business model. From this data, it is possible to project how profitable the company may be (or not), and when it can expect to reach profitability.

Valuation

The biggest determinant of your startup’s value are the market forces of the industry & sector in which it plays, which include the balance (or imbalance) between demand and supply of money, the recency and size of recent exits, the willingness for an investor to pay a premium to get into a deal, and the level of desperation of the entrepreneur looking for money.

Investor Perspectives

Most of the startups on AngelList don’t get funded, just as most of the startups anywhere don’t get funded. A recent Economist article quotes some specific numbers on AngelList. Roughly 1% is the funding success rate for all these startups and after they get funded from VC’s or Angels the percentage of achieving an at least 10x exit is less than 1%..

Financial Statements

The three basic financial statements are the (1) balance sheet, which shows firm’s assets, liabilities, and net worth on a stated date; (2) income statement (also called profit & loss account), which shows how the net income of the firm is arrived at over a stated period, and (3) cash flow statement, which shows the inflows and outflows of cash caused by the firm’s activities during a stated period.

Course Location

Sultan Ventures

900 Fort Street Mall #1888

Honolulu, Hawaii 96813