Startup Finance Without the MBA
8 modules · 44 lessons · $197 one-time
Buy for $197
Sample course — Curio AI

Startup Finance Without the MBA

The financial literacy course for founders who avoided accounting, dropped the finance class, and now need to actually run a company with real money in it.

8 modules 44 lessons Video + workbook
$197 One-time payment · Lifetime access
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Who this is for
Full curriculum

8 modules · 44 lessons

Module 1
The Three Financial Statements Founders Actually Need
Drop the MBA vocabulary. Learn the three documents that actually run a startup — P&L, balance sheet, cash flow statement — and what each one tells you about the health of your company.
The P&L: what it is, what it isn't, and why most founders read it wrong
Reading a balance sheet: assets, liabilities, and what equity actually represents
Cash flow statement: the document that keeps you alive when P&L says you're profitable
How the three statements connect — and why ignoring the connections gets you in trouble
Building your first financial dashboard: the 5 numbers every founder should track daily
Module 2
Reading Your P&L Like a Professional
Understand revenue recognition, COGS, gross margin, operating expenses, and net income — and learn which numbers to look at first when you're trying to understand your business.
Revenue recognition: when is a sale actually a sale?
COGS and gross margin: the difference between a scalable business and one that isn't
Operating expenses: what's a marketing expense vs. a sales expense vs. G&A (and why it matters)
Net income vs. EBITDA: which number investors actually look at and why
Variance analysis: why your actuals don't match your budget and how to close the gap
Module 3
Fundraising Finance — What Investors Are Actually Asking For
Understand the financial deliverables investors expect, what the numbers in your deck actually represent, and how to defend your model in a room full of people who've seen every version of it.
The financial model that investors trust: structure, assumptions, and the three scenarios
MRR, ARR, and LTV: the startup metrics that matter and what they actually mean
CAC and LTV/CAC ratio: how investors evaluate the efficiency of your sales motion
Burn rate and runway: the math behind how long your money actually lasts
The diluted cap table: pre-money vs. post-money, option pool, and what your actual ownership is
Defending your model in Q&A: what to say when they challenge your assumptions
Module 4
Unit Economics — The Numbers That Determine Whether You're a Real Business
Build the unit economics framework that tells you whether your business actually makes sense at scale — before you raise money to find out it doesn't.
Defining your unit: how to choose what to measure (customer, contract, seat, transaction)
Revenue per unit vs. cost per unit: finding your gross margin per customer
Cohort analysis: why looking at aggregate numbers hides your real growth pattern
Payback period: how long before a customer is profitable — and why that matters for hiring
The net revenue retention test: why the best SaaS businesses have NRG above 100%
Module 5
Budgeting and Forecasting — Building a Plan You Can Actually Use
Build a financial forecasting process that generates the board-ready models you need without spending your entire week in spreadsheets.
The zero-based budgeting approach for startups: how to budget from reality, not last year
Top-down vs. bottom-up forecasting: which one earns investor trust
Building the 13-week cash flow forecast: the document that prevents surprises
Scenario planning: base case, bear case, and bull case without fabricating optimism
Headcount planning: how to model hiring in a forecast without getting it wrong
Module 6
Equity, Options, and Compensation Finance
Understand the equity mechanics that affect your team, your investors, and your eventual exit — without a lawyer present.
Common stock vs. preferred stock: what your investors actually own
Option grants, vesting, and the 409A valuation: what every employee needs to understand
The option pool shuffle: what it does to your cap table and why VCs ask for it
Compensation benchmarking: how to pay fairly without overpaying on equity
409A valuations and SAFE notes: the mechanics that confuse first-time founders
Module 7
Hiring Your First Finance Person — or Doing It Yourself
Know when to hire a CFO vs. a VP Finance vs. a fractional CFO — and learn what to look for so you don't waste two years with the wrong person.
The startup finance maturity model: what you need at $0–1M, $1–5M, $5–20M ARR
CFO vs. VP Finance vs. Controller: the titles and what they actually mean for your stage
Fractional CFO evaluation: what to expect, what to pay, and how to know when it's enough
Interviewing finance candidates: the questions that reveal whether they understand your stage
When to graduate from spreadsheets to a real financial system (and which one to pick)
Module 8
Your Finance Foundation — The 90-Day Build Plan
A structured 90-day plan to build the financial infrastructure and literacy foundations that let you run your company with real confidence.
Week 1–2: Building your first real P&L — the categories, the accounting, the habits
Week 3–4: Setting up your cash flow tracking and 13-week forecast
Week 5–6: Investor financial model setup — the structure that earns board trust
Week 7–8: Unit economics deep-dive — calculating your real numbers
Week 9–10: Hiring and tooling decisions based on what you've learned
Week 11–12: Building the monthly finance review habit that keeps you ahead
Ready to start

8 modules. 44 lessons. One price.

Everything you need to understand your company's financial reality — and make better decisions with it.

$197
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Sample lesson

Module 3, Lesson 3: CAC and LTV/CAC Ratio — How Investors Evaluate the Efficiency of Your Sales Motion

Most first-time founders know their CAC exists as a number, but they don't know what it means in context — and that gap shows up immediately in investor conversations. The question isn't "what's your CAC?" It's "what's your LTV/CAC ratio and what does that tell us about your business?"

Here's the framework:

Defining CAC Correctly

CAC is not just your marketing spend divided by your new customers. That's "blended CAC" — a useful top-line number, but it's not what sophisticated investors are asking about. They want "paid CAC" — the cost to acquire a customer through your paid channels specifically — because blended CAC conflates organic and referral growth that may not be replicable at scale.

Your sales and marketing spend over a period divided by the number of new customers acquired in that period. That's the simple definition. The complexity comes in deciding which costs to include and what counts as a "new customer" for your model.

For a B2B SaaS company: include salaries, tools, and program costs for both marketing and sales. For an e-commerce company: include the full cost of your customer acquisition channel, including credit card fees on the first purchase. Don't include product or engineering costs, even if they're sales-adjacent. That conflates your acquisition cost with your cost of goods.

LTV: Lifetime Value and How to Calculate It

LTV is the net revenue you expect to earn from a customer over the entire relationship. For a SaaS business with monthly subscriptions, LTV is average monthly revenue per account, multiplied by the average number of months a customer stays before churning. That's the simple version. The more accurate version subtracts the direct cost of serving that customer — COGS — to get gross LTV.

The critical variable is churn. A business with 5% monthly churn has an average customer lifetime of 20 months. A business with 1.5% monthly churn has a 67-month average lifetime. That difference changes your LTV calculation by more than 3x — and it changes your answer to the question every investor is really asking: "is the business worth acquiring customers at this cost?"

The LTV/CAC Ratio and What Numbers Investors Want

LTV/CAC is your LTV divided by your CAC. A ratio above 3x is considered healthy for a B2B SaaS company. Above 5x is strong. Below 2x is a warning sign — your acquisition cost is too high relative to what each customer is worth, which means scaling spend will burn cash faster than it generates it.

The context matters: early-stage companies often have high CAC because they're investing in channels they haven't optimized yet. Investors cut early-stage founders some slack on this number if the trajectory is improving — if the CAC is coming down as you learn the channel. What they don't forgive is a high CAC that isn't improving, because that suggests the channel itself doesn't work at scale.

The other number they look at is payback period: how many months of revenue it takes to recover your CAC. Under 12 months is considered good. Under 6 months is excellent. If your payback is 18 months, you need to either reduce CAC or extend LTV before scaling your sales and marketing spend.

Using This to Make Better Decisions

The LTV/CAC ratio is a strategic compass, not just a reporting number. When it's above 3x, invest more in acquisition — the unit economics work and the payback is reasonable. When it's below 2x, improve the product's ability to retain customers (reduce churn = higher LTV) before spending more to bring new ones in.

Investors are doing the same math. If your LTV/CAC is 1.2x, they're worried that a market downturn or rising ad costs will put you underwater. If it's 6x, they're excited about the leverage in your model. Know your numbers before the meeting so you can present the version of this metric that shows the best possible version of your trajectory.

🔒

The rest of this lesson — including the full LTV/CAC calculator spreadsheet, unit economics framework, and investor pitch deck finance template — is in the full course.

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This full curriculum — 8 modules, 44 lessons, learning objectives, pricing, and sample lesson — was generated by Curio in under 5 minutes from a single topic prompt. No templates. No manual outlining. Just a subject and a button.

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Illustrative customer stories
★★★★★

"I raised a $2M seed round six months ago and had no idea what a 409A was or why my option pool needed to exist. Module 6 and the cap table explanation saved me from agreeing to terms that would have significantly diluted me. Worth 100x the price."

— [Name], [City] · CEO and co-founder, Series A
* Illustrative example — not a verified customer
★★★★★

"Module 4 on unit economics finally gave me the framework to understand why my SaaS was burning cash at $300K ARR. We had a 24-month payback period. After the course, we restructured pricing and got it to 9 months. That was the difference between surviving and running out of money."

— [Name], [City] · Founder, $400K ARR SaaS
* Illustrative example — not a verified customer
★★★★★

"I've been avoiding finance my entire career. Took this course because I needed to understand my board's questions. Now I walk into board meetings actually knowing what I'm talking about. Module 3 — fundraising finance — is the thing I needed three rounds ago."

— [Name], [City] · CTO turned CEO, Series B
* Illustrative example — not a verified customer

Stop deferring the finance conversation.

Eight modules. A complete financial literacy framework for founders. One purchase. If you've been avoiding the numbers because you don't feel qualified — this is the course that fixes that.

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