Please stop sending 5-year projections

Quick founder note from the investor side.

Please stop sending 5-year projections.

Not because you're wrong. Because everyone knows they're fiction.

Markets change. Products pivot. Pricing shifts. Competition moves. So a "2030 revenue line" doesn't build trust.

It does the opposite.

What investors actually want instead

If you want to look serious, send a model that proves you understand your business today and the next 12 months:

1) A clear 12-month plan (expenses)

• Hiring plan
• Salaries
• Marketing spend
• Infrastructure / tools
• Operating costs

Every dollar accounted for.

2) Unit economics

• What it costs to acquire a customer (CAC)
• What you earn per customer
• How that changes over time

3) Your funnel math

• Leads → demos → customers
• Conversion rates
• What you're improving and why

4) Burn + runway

• Monthly burn rate
• How many months you have
• What happens if revenue is slower than expected

Red flags that make investors skip

• Perfect hockey sticks
• "Market share grows forever"
• "Competition stays still"
• No real cost breakdown
• Assumptions hidden in a black box

A simple rule I use

If you're fundraising right now, do this today:

• Build a clean 12-month plan
• Show the math
• Explain assumptions
• Make it readable

That alone will put you ahead of most decks.