Most founders I talk to invent LTV from a three-month cohort and hope nobody asks for the retention curve. Early stage almost never has clean 12-month churn. The move is not to fake lifetime. It is to show the assumptions.
What I check before any unit-economics slide: ARPU from real invoices, gross margin you can defend, and the churn you actually observed, even if the sample is thin. Say the sample size out loud. Investors fund honesty plus a path, not a polished guess.
On Round Funded the LTV calculator turns ARPU, gross margin, and monthly churn into the lifetime value investors model, so you are not quoting vanity revenue LTV from a deck.
LTV is not ARPU times 36 months. Most founders get it wrong.
Most founders quote a CAC from a slide and hope nobody asks how it was built. Round Funded starts from spend and customers, not the deck.
You enter marketing spend, optional sales spend, and new customers for the same window. The CAC calculator divides that into blended CAC and marketing-only CAC, then shows payback against LTV so the number is not a blended vanity guess from three channels mashed together.
Most founders cut slides by deleting wallpaper: team photos, logos, the vision moodboard. That is not a cut. Angels skim for decision facts. Keep only what answers: what you do, why now, who pays, what you proved, how much you raise and for what.
On Round Funded we score pre-seed decks against what angels actually open, and the slide count is almost never the first thing that kills you. Packing is. Ten to twelve slides is usually enough: problem, solution, why now, market, product, traction or early proof, business model, go-to-market, team, the ask. Fifteen starts to feel like you are justifying the deck instead of the company. Twenty-five is almost always a strategy memo with a title slide. Cut anything that does not change a yes/no. One metric per slide beats three charts. If a slide needs a voiceover to land, it is not ready. Use this free check before you send: https://roundfunded.com/en/tools...
Most founders agree a valuation and skip which side of the check it sits on. Pre-money is the company before the money lands. Post-money is that number plus the check. Same headline, different ownership.
Round Funded walks that with a pre-money and post-money valuation calculator. You enter the check size and the valuation you were quoted. It labels which number it is, then shows founder ownership after close.
If the option pool sits before the money, that dilution is yours, not theirs. Same inputs you already have. Output is what you own the day it closes.
No fake TAM slide. Just pre, post, the check, and ownership.
On Round Funded the pre-money and post-money valuation calculator turns round size and valuation into founder ownership after close, so you know which number you actually agreed to.
Pre-money is the value before the check lands. Post-money is pre-money plus the check. Same headline, different outcome.
Raising 1M on a 5M pre-money means 6M post and about 16.7 percent to the investor. The same 1M on 5M post-money is 20 percent. Nobody lied, the words just did the work.
Ask which one the number is before you counter, check whether the option pool sits before or after the money, and judge the deal on what you own the day it closes.
Most founders I talk to agree on a number before they agree on which number it is. You say 5M, the investor writes 5M post, and your 1M round just cost you 20 percent instead of 16.7. Same headline, different cap table.
What I check on every term sheet: is the valuation pre or post, does the option pool sit before or after the money, and what does the founder side own on the day of close. If the pool is promised out of pre, that dilution is yours, not theirs.
I run the numbers on Round Funded before the call so the conversation is about terms, not arithmetic.
Most founders track burn as a monthly number and stop there. Break-even is the flip: the month revenue covers that burn and cash stops shrinking.
Round Funded walks that with a break-even point calculator. You enter monthly burn, revenue today, and how fast revenue is growing. It maps months until the curves cross, so you see when the company stops bleeding cash instead of guessing from a static spreadsheet.
