18-month runway planner

Most pre-seed runway forecasts fall apart the first month a contractor invoice lands late or a hire starts a fortnight earlier than planned. The fix is not a more accurate single forecast. The fix is three scenarios and four pre-committed thresholds, reviewed monthly. The point is to know what action this month means before the cash arrives at it.

Run the worksheet at the start of each quarter, refresh the cash line monthly, and re-stress-test the scenarios when the team changes shape or a contract closes.

Part 1: Baseline

Three numbers, on the same row, refreshed at the start of each month.

• Cash on hand on the first of the month: $______
• Receivables landing this month (high-confidence only): $______
• Committed outflows this month (payroll, rent, contractors with signed POs): $______

Net cash position at month-end is row one plus row two minus row three. If row two is doing heavy lifting, mark the entry with the contract date so a slip is visible.

Part 2: Monthly burn forecast — three scenarios

Project eighteen months of net burn under three scenarios. Each scenario differs only on the rows the founder controls; revenue assumptions stay constant across all three so the variance maps to spend, not hope.

Realistic

The plan as written. Hires land on the dates in the offer letters, contractor work renews at current cadence, tooling stays at current spend. This is the base case the next investor sees.

Lean

The hires you delay by one quarter, the contractors you renegotiate or pause, the tools you can leave at the previous tier. Usually saves six to ten percent of monthly burn at pre-seed scale. Worth knowing because it converts directly into runway months when the realistic case stops being true.

Stress

A revenue scenario where the next contract slips ninety days and one current contract churns. Hold spend at realistic. Most pre-seed teams have not modelled this and discover it in week one of the slip.

Compute runway months under each scenario as cash on hand divided by the average monthly burn for that scenario. Three numbers; one cell each; no charts needed.

Part 3: The four trigger thresholds

Pick four runway thresholds where, if cash drops below them under the realistic scenario, a specific action is committed. Decide the action now, while the runway still feels comfortable. The point is to remove the founder discretion from the moment the threshold is hit.

• Twelve months of runway: begin the next raise conversation with three named investors. Do not wait for nine months — by then the conversation is rushed.
• Nine months of runway: switch to lean scenario spend. Pause non-revenue hires. Renegotiate the two largest tooling contracts.
• Six months of runway: convene a board or advisor call within seven days. Bring three options on the table: bridge, lean further, or wind-down.
• Four months of runway: this is not a planning threshold. This is an operational one. Stop hiring, freeze non-essential outflows, and have the bridge or wind-down decision made within fourteen days.

Founders who hit the four-month threshold without a triggered action almost always lose another month to denial before they act. The pre-commit removes the option to lose that month.

Part 4: Monthly review prompt

Five questions, ten minutes, the first Monday of every month.

1. What is our current month-end runway under each of the three scenarios?
2. Did any threshold from Part 3 fire this month? Did the committed action happen?
3. What changed about our base assumptions this month (hires, contracts, tooling, churn) that should re-rate the scenarios next refresh?
4. What is the single number from this worksheet we should put on the next investor update? (Hint: the realistic-scenario runway months belongs in the subject line.)
5. What action does this worksheet tell us to take in the next thirty days that we are not currently doing?

Investors do not read your forecast for accuracy. They read it for evidence that you have already lived inside the bad versions and decided what to do about them. The number that matters is not the runway. It is the next action the runway maps to.

Template from Marga Haus · margahaus.com/resources · Adapt and use freely. Attribution appreciated, not required.