The cap table lived in a rainbow of tabs. So did ARR, “ARR-ish,” and something called ARR_final_v9. The founder was two months from a priced round. Our job was not to shame the spreadsheet—it was to retire it in stages without stopping the raise.
Weeks 1–3: one source for revenue truth
We consolidated contracts, billing exports, and CRM opportunity stages into a single revenue bridge: MRR movement, churn, expansion. Every cell linked to a PDF or an export. If a number could not be sourced, it left the board deck.
We standardised cohort definition—when a customer counts as “live,” when they count as churned. Growth and finance used the same verbs.
Weeks 4–6: model + scenario stack
We rebuilt three models the team could defend live: unit economics (LTV/CAC boundaries explicit), 24‑month cash against hiring plan, and downside/upside scenarios with two levers each—not twenty.
“Investors did not ask for more scenarios. They asked which one we believed—and why.”
— Founder (anonymised SaaS, EU)
Weeks 7–12: data room mechanics
Index page, consistent naming, versioning, access log. Legal had a folder; product had roadmap + release notes pulled from the repo, not from memory. We assigned a “room editor” with authority to reject duplicate PDFs.
We ran a dry diligence: a friendly PE associate asked questions for two hours. Gaps became tickets, not excuses.
Where this breaks down
When the CFO and CEO use different ARR definitions privately. When “we will fix it in the room” means never. When engineering has no API for usage data and finance hand-reconstructs it weekly.
Our read
Spreadsheets scale to a point. After that, discipline is the product. Ninety days gets you from credibility risk to operating proof—if you treat the data room as ship work, not paperwork.