Default dead.
Revenue catches expenses at Month 16, but cash runs out at Month 14 first. The gap is what a cut, a price change, or a raise has to cover.
Framing from Paul Graham’s “Default Alive or Default Dead?”
Read the curve.
- 01
Break-even lands at Month 16, but cash runs out 2 months earlier.
- 02
Your raise-by date is Mar 2027, about 8 months from now.
- 03
At your burn, $750k buys roughly 17.9 months.
Bands, not gospel.
Pick your stage and sector to compare against the right peers.
Your 13.7 months of runway is below the median for Seed SaaS startups.
Directional, not gospel. Benchmarks are medians from public data (Carta, Kruze Consulting), last refreshed Jul 2026. Your sector and geography shift these numbers.
What has to be true?
Name a runway target. The tool searches the exact growth rate, burn cap, or raise that gets you there, straight from the same projection the chart uses.
To reach 18 months, any one of these has to be true:
Grow revenue at 10.2% /mo, up from 10%
Cap starting net burn at $41k /mo, down from $42k
Raise at least $10k by Mar 2027The raise figure covers your deepest projected cash shortfall over the target window, plus a 5% margin rounded up to a clean number. It is a floor, not a target.
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