To start you off, we’ve created a quick tutorial video demonstrating how to use Poindexter. To continue reading the 5 simple steps, please scroll down the page.
Step 1: Create Your Budget
Once you're logged into your dashboard, begin by creating a new budget.
You’ll immediately arrive on the Settings page, where you can establish project-level details such as start date, currency and forecast range.
Click ‘Create Project’ once you’ve established all the necessary settings.
Step 2: Add Customers
The next page you'll see is the ‘Customers page.’ This is where you detail the customer acquisition channel and establish conversion rates and forecasts for each source. Click the green ‘+ Add’ button in the top left to begin inserting your customer acquisition channels.
For more information on inputting customer acquisition models, please refer to the Acquisition Funnel or Manual Projection pages.
For a list of common customer acquisition channels please refer to the Customer Channel Example page.
For a list of resources for various conversion rates, please refer to the Conversion Rate Guide.
Step 3: Forecast Revenue
After you’ve planned all customer acquisition activities, proceed to the revenue page where you’ll specify how revenue is generated from the customers you’ve forecasted.
Select from the five pre-built revenue models to insert a revenue stream.
Below you'll find a breakdown of each revenue model to help determine which is best for your business.
Revenue Model Breakdown
Purchase Model – A simple sales transaction, where customers are charged a sales price upon converting.
In-App / In-Game Model – A usage-based model, where potential customers need to be using your product in order for purchases to take place.
Advertising - A usage-based model where users need to be logged onto your service to generate ad revenue.
Subscription Model – A time-based model where customers are charged a monthly fee for products or services provided.
Manual Revenue Model – A free-form model, where you may forecast revenue with as much flexibility as possible.
Pro Tip:
If you have more than one revenue stream, or charge customers using more than one method, it may be best to input a revenue model for each transaction type as it will allow for maximum flexibility in fine-tuning your assumptions.
For instance, if you charge an upfront fee once a customer is acquired, and then charge an ongoing monthly fee for services, it would be best to input one revenue model to record the upfront fee and input a separate model to account for the ongoing services.
Step 4: Insert Costs
After we’ve included all of our revenue streams we can then move on to the costs page. This is where we’ll specify each of our costs (believe it or not) according to how they’re incurred.
For instance, the ‘Per Transaction’ model will apply a cost for each revenue transaction that occurs between your company and it’s customers. This would be particularly useful if we’re selling a physical good, and we have material or product costs associated with each sale.
Here is a brief description of how each model works:
Cost Model Breakdown
Per Transaction – Applies a cost for each sales transaction
Salaried Labor – Schedule the costs of onboarding new employees
Hourly Labor – Schedule part-time or contract labor costs, dates and durations
Per User – Applies a cost based on the number of customers or based on their activity
Recurring – Simple fixed, recurring costs
% of Sales – Applies a cost as a percentage of revenue
Per Employee – Applies a cost based on the number of employee’s
Step 5: Schedule Your Investments
Our last page is the Investments page. This is where we schedule the timing for any expected asset purchases, loans or equity injections.
Note: if you’ve included a ‘Salaried Labor’ model on the ‘Costs’ page you can schedule an asset purchase to take place with the onboarding of each new employee by selecting ‘Asset per Employee’ in the ‘Type’ field.
For more information on how to fill out the assets page, please refer to the Asset Purchase model page.
Reviewing Your Financial Performance
Now that we have our business model built out, we can then check how we’re doing financially in the ‘Financials’ section (located on the left nav panel). The first page we’ll see is the performance summary dashboard, which will show us some important KPI’s (key performance indicators) that tell us right away whether our plans need further refinement.
To learn more about the financial performance visit the Performance Summary detail page
Important Considerations
If we notice that something isn’t looking quite right in our Performance Summary, we’ll have to think about how to adjust our business plans to improve the financial outlook.
For Instance, based on the example Summary Page pictured above, if we only have $100K to get our business off the ground, we’ll need to go back into our assumptions and see what we can do to bring Total Funding Needed down below that amount.
There’s no one-size-fits-all approach to figuring out which parts of the plan needs adjustment. In any given situation, you'll need to make your own decisions about which activities can be delayed, removed or re-strategized to reach your goals.
One way to identify areas for improvement is to review the Income Statement (located in the Financials section).
If Income Statements are new to you, here’s a quick video that’ll give you a rundown of some basics:
Pro Tip: You can click on the rows in your income statement to adjust your assumptions directly from the Financials section.
If you’d like to dig even further into the details of your financial performance, Poindexter also produces full Balance Sheets and Cash Flow Statements.
This concludes the 5 simple steps for creating your first project in Poindexter.
For any remaining questions or requests, please feel free to reach out to the Poindexter team through the contact widget (“?”) in the bottom right-hand corner.
If you’re interested in more hands-on guidance, we also offer a free 30-minute consultation for all new Poindexter Pro subscriptions.
Have fun planning your new venture!