Blog
Expert guides on financial modelling, valuation, and forecasting. Built for finance professionals, founders, and analysts.
The Rule of 72: Quick Mental Math for Growth and Investing
The Rule of 72 formula, exactly how accurate it is by rate, and how to use it as a rule of 72 calculator sanity-check on growth and doubling-time assumptions in a financial model.
Liquidation Preferences: 1x, Participating and Stacked
A practical guide to liquidation preferences: what the 1x and 2x multiples mean, participating vs. non-participating preferred, participation caps, how a preference stack pays out across multiple funding rounds, and when investors convert to common stock.
Cash-on-Cash Return: Formula and Example
Learn the cash-on-cash return formula for real estate, how leverage changes it, and a fully worked apartment-building example comparing all-cash, financed, and IRR.
How to Underwrite a Multifamily Acquisition
A step-by-step guide to multifamily underwriting: build the rent roll, calculate NOI, check the going-in cap rate, size debt and test DSCR, model the value-add plan, and underwrite the exit - with a fully worked 150-unit example.
How to Model Synergies in an M&A Deal
Learn how to model synergies in M&A: build cost and revenue synergies bottom-up, risk-adjust and phase them in, net out integration costs, and discount to NPV to test against the deal premium.
How to Build an Income Statement Projection
Learn how to build an income statement projection line by line - revenue, COGS, operating expenses, EBIT, and net income - with Excel formulas and a full worked example.
Compound Interest Formula: How It Works in Financial Modeling and Excel
The compound interest formula explained term by term, with worked examples across annual, quarterly, monthly and continuous compounding, the Excel functions, and how it becomes the discount factor in a DCF.
Pre-Money vs Post-Money Valuation Explained
Pre-money vs post-money valuation, explained with the core math: how to calculate post-money valuation three ways, a full worked cap-table example, the option pool shuffle that lowers your effective pre-money, and the mistakes that cost founders real ownership.
EBITDA Bridge: How to Build One in Excel
Learn how to build an EBITDA bridge in Excel: decompose the year-over-year change in EBITDA into volume, price, cost, and FX drivers, and turn it into a waterfall chart.
How to Build an OpEx Forecast
How to build an opex forecast in Excel: the five cost behaviours, the right forecast method for each (run-rate, headcount-driven, percent-of-revenue, driver-based, zero-based), a monthly six-category worked example, and a budget-vs-actual variance report.
CAPM and Cost of Equity: Formula and Worked Example
Learn how to calculate the cost of equity with the CAPM formula: the risk-free rate, equity risk premium, beta (levered and unlevered), the size premium, and a full worked example.
Net Operating Income (NOI): Formula and How to Calculate It
Learn how to calculate Net Operating Income (NOI) for real estate: the formula, what's included above vs. below the line, NOI vs. EBITDA, a worked self-storage example, and stabilized vs. pro forma NOI.
