RtBVCFO
Virtual CFO Advising SaaS startups and scale ups on Finance & Strategy - Investment decisions, fundraising support and cash flow forecasting are key strengths. No accounting/bookkeeping.
website: https://www.abel-finance.com email: rob [at] abel dash finance dotcom
Working remote is no problem, as long as you organize it properly.
Now, founding a business with someone you never met in person is a big no-go. It is like getting married. You need to understand eachother, communicate your visions, worries and ideas, be able to work through hardship and setbacks. You really need to get to know each other before you jump in a marriage.
Understanding WHY he doesn't want to sign gives the direction to solve it. I've had clients being resistent on them as well, but addressing the why helped resolve. Usually there is a fear behind it - getting screwed, getting fired, fear of losing control of their baby etc.
If you have a long horizon (>15 years), invest part in crypto, part in index trackers, maybe take a few small angel investment stakes and some REIT.
Shorter horizon but still want to do aggressive? The half in Crypto, and several early stage companies and keep a half in cash or bonds.
For the pitching phase: You want to show you understand your market and your customers – if you found product market fit – what is that market, how big is it, and what is your approach to achieve that? Your roadmap and strategy and leading. Your financial projects should back up your story and show you understand how you plan to scale your business and what it takes to do that. So the metrics and and projections to include depend on your exact business. 2 sources with suggestions on key metrics:
https://tomtunguz.com/saas-startup-benchmarks/
https://abel-finance.com/8-saas-performance-metrics/
In the pitching phase – in the main deck you don’t have space for much detail – 1 or max 2 sheets with financials (cashflow, MRR, and some key metrics) - but do prepare more detailed sheets to have at hand if investors ask.
In the DD phase: You’re going to have to be very open – you want to show the truth, your positive and realistic assumptions and be honest about your challenges. This is the time to build and solidify trust. You’re probably going to share your full financial model with the investor. Investors don’t expect you have every potential challenge solved. They expect a leadership team that understands where they are going and how they want to get there, and is capable of dealing with roadblocks that arise along the way.