Runway is the only metric that ends a company. Revenue can be soft, product can be behind, hires can be wrong — the company survives. Cash runs out, the company dies. Every founder knows this in theory. Very few live it in practice until the first time they see runway drop below six months and realize how little control they had over how it got there.
Thirty minutes, same time every week, founder plus finance lead. Four numbers:
1. Cash in bank today. 2. Net burn last week. 3. Runway in months at current burn. 4. Any changes to the 13-week forecast.
That is it. No slides, no other agenda. The purpose is that the founder always knows these four numbers within one day of accuracy.
Weekly, not monthly. Monthly forecasts hide problems that would be obvious weekly. Rows are cash inflows (collections by customer, not by invoice date), cash outflows by category (payroll, vendors, taxes, one-time), and ending cash. Every Friday, actuals get plugged in and the next 13 weeks roll forward.
The 13-week forecast catches problems six to eight weeks before the P&L does. A big customer paying late shows up in week 3 of the forecast, not in the next month-end close.
1. Collections. Every day of DSO improvement is a day of runway. Automate reminders at day 15, 30, and 45. Escalate to the CEO at 60. 2. Vendor terms. Net-30 by default, negotiate net-60 with large vendors. Never pay early. 3. Annual prepayments. Offering 10 percent off for annual upfront can pull forward a year of cash and change the runway math materially.
At 6 months, cut discretionary spend and prepare a bridge scenario.
At 4 months, take the bridge if it is available on any reasonable terms.
The decisions get easier when the trigger is not a judgment call in the moment but a rule written down in a healthier time.
Not the moment cash runs out. The moment three months earlier when they realized it would and it was too late to change trajectory. The discipline above is designed to make sure that moment never arrives.
