Research Guides: ENTR 2P51: Entrepreneurship Basics: Financial Feasibility

Financial Feasibility

These resources can help you to:

Calculate total start-up cash needed
Finding sources of startup funding
Compare the financial performance of similar businesses

Estimate Startup Costs & Forecast Sales

How to estimate startup costs (Intuit QuickBooks)
- A beginner's guide to startup costs including how to estimate startup costs for a restaurant.
Bottom-Up Sales Forecasting for Pre-revenue startups (MaRS)
Building an early-stage B2B sales forecast (MaRS)
Finance - MaRS Startup Toolkit

Funded: the entrepreneur's guide to raising your first round by Katherine Hague
Call Number: Read this online
Publication Date: 2017
See chapter 8: drafting financial projections
Start-Up: A practical guide to starting and running a new business by Tom Harris
Call Number: Read this online
Publication Date: 2018
See Chapter 8: "How do you create a financial model?" for guidance on how to forecast sales, set prices, plan employment needs and costs, capital expenditure, etc.
The Startup Owner's Manual: the step-by-step guide for building a great company by Steve Blank; Bob Dorf
Call Number: Read this online
Publication Date: 2012
See Chapter 12, Validate the financial model. Includes a discussion of "burn rate" and metrics that matter.
Entrepreneurial Finance, Fourth Edition: Finance and Business Strategies for the Serious Entrepreneur by Steven Rogers
Call Number: Read this online
Publication Date: 2020

Funding Your Startup

Canadian Financial Data Sources

It is possible to benchmark your pro-forma financial statement data by type of business, size of business, and by line of business (e.g., industry or NAICS) using these Canadian sources:

Financial Performance Data (Industry Canada)
more info...close...
It includes information from T1 General Returns and T2 Corporation Income Tax Returns. Note that non-profit organizations may have to file a T2 return if they are incorporated.
Canadian Industry Statistics (Industry Canada)