Your last round was priced at a number you cannot justify now, and you need more money. The two honest ways through are a bridge to grow into the price or a down round to reset it. Which one is right turns on a single question.
Venture debt can look like the cheapest money you will raise. But the lender is underwriting one thing above all: whether you will raise your next equity round. Understand that and you will know when to take it and when to leave it.
You raised internationally and flipped to a parent company abroad, in the US or the UK, over your Nigerian company. Now which one bills the customer, which one employs the team, and who pays whom? The money and costs between the two have to move deliberately, and on the record.
The finances usually get a proper look once a month, when the books close. But a small set of numbers moves fast enough that monthly is too slow. Watching them weekly, for a few minutes, is one of the most useful habits a founder can build.
Your first board meeting sets the tone for every one after it. Run it off a pack the room has already read, spend the time on the decisions that need the board, and be straight about what is not working. Done well, it turns the board into a resource rather than an audience.
Closing a round is a skill. Deploying it is a different one. Here is how to turn a fixed sum into enough progress to reach your next stage, using burn, runway, the burn multiple, and one test: whether you would reach profitability before the money runs out.
Most founder budgets are built on a single growth rate with nothing underneath it, and an experienced board sees through it in a minute. A budget they trust is built a particular way, from the plan, from real drivers, and honest about its assumptions.
The money has landed and the pressure is to start spending it. The first quarter is where you either build the discipline that makes the round last or spend it down faster than you meant to. What to put in place first, before the spending starts.
Most founders ask whether they can afford a CFO. The sharper question is whether the business has started making decisions its numbers cannot yet support. Here is how to tell where you stand.
If you live in the US, the UK or Europe and run a Nigerian company, paying yourself is a cross-border tax question with a different answer in each country. Here is where your pay is taxed, salary versus dividends, and the traps that catch diaspora founders.
Founder pay is a runway decision. Set it too low and your judgement suffers; set it too high and you shorten your runway and unsettle investors. Here is a framework for setting the number, what the benchmarks show, and how to take the money so the tax and the books stay clean.