Michael C. Rabonza

Not every risk is worth taking. But the real danger? Taking them without knowing where you stand. You don't need courage to raise capital. You need courage to reconcile your past. Because clarity isn't a given. It’s earned — by asking the question: What will you do with what you’ve already done? And you cannot move forward — in business or in life — until you know where you truly stand. 👇Journal Entry 003: Venture Clarity

@paulswaney3 I'm in !

@NoahEpstein_ COMPOSER

cursor just made every $200/month copilot subscription look like a scam dropped today with their own coding model what took 8 hours of manual coding now takes 30 seconds and it runs 8 versions of itself in parallel to pick the best solution while github's charging $20/month for autocomplete, cursor built an entire autonomous dev team composer model: → 4x faster than gpt/claude → completes full features in <30 seconds → tests its own code automatically → built with reinforcement learning on real codebases here's what's actually wild: most companies paying $150k/year for junior devs to do work this does for $20/month just saved a client $253k/month migrating their dev work to cursor's multi-agent system the intelligence gap between "we hired 3 developers" and "we deployed cursor" is getting stupid comment "COMPOSER" and ill send the full breakdown of how to replace your dev costs with this

@henrythe9ths FUNDRAISE

I got rejected by 144 investors before raising $150M for my $200M+ rev/year startup. After 144 rejections, I started questioning our approach. Were we solving the right problem? What were we doing wrong? Why weren’t investors seeing what we were seeing? Were we the right team to build this? We tried everything: different pitch angles, new deck structures, and reframing the problem. Then came the 145th meeting, where we closed our first growth round. That yes made everything worth it. But getting there took years of mistakes and hard work. We went through a lot of trial and error just to figure out what resonates with investors. We tried dozens of approaches to figure out what made investors engage. Some landed, most didn't. But each iteration taught us something about what builds conviction versus what just sounds good on paper. And once we cracked that code, our Series C closed faster than expected. And today, I see so many founders in the exact same position I was in 10 years ago: grinding through rejections, questioning everything, and trying to figure out what works. So today I want to give you the resource I wish I had back then: Something that shows you exactly how to structure these conversations and navigate the entire process (because the fundraising cycle can be a big distraction and take a toll on you as a founder). So I've partnered with Notion's Startups Team to create the essential fundraising resource that helps you avoid the mistakes that cost me years. Here's what you are getting: • The actual decks I used to raise $150M for Super[.]com (Series B, C) • 50 real examples from funded startups like Eleven Labs and Artisan AI • A searchable database of 10,000+ investors - angels, VCs, and accelerators you can reach out to immediately (this alone would take months to build manually) • An AI-powered fundraising agent built into Notion with step-by-step prompts (no separate ChatGPT needed) Want access? • Like and share this post • Comment "FUNDRAISE" • Follow me so I can DM you the link I'll send it over ASAP. P.S.: If you are serious about fundraising (now or in the future), you should grab it right away.

TL;DR: Anyone of us can raise a hand to prevent the next Enron. Asking 3 simple questions provides a framework to cut through complexity: 1. Where is the cash? 2. Who does it belong to? 3. Does it respect the priority of payments? These questions should be asked by investors, owners & operators, even employees, suppliers & every other stakeholder — for we all have a responsibility to make businesses better.

The Enron bankruptcy of 2001 remains the most devastating corporate implosion in modern financial history: $70 billion in market value vaporized overnight. 89-year-old Arthur Andersen erased, ending the Big 5 accounting era. US launched the largest corporate reform since the Great Depression. A lot has been written about what happened. But here’s the thing — This didn’t require a whistleblower. It didn’t require inside access. It didn’t require hindsight. Anyone could have stopped this. If they had just asked these 3 simple questions: 🧵

I’ve spent 25 years deploying private capital globally. The toughest part wasn’t finding great businesses — it was trusting the numbers. That’s why I built @kraion_io. Not another SaaS tool. An operating system for SME capital access.

No amount of financial acumen can save anyone from bad bookkeeping.

This is what every small business owner needs. Can't afford a full-time CFO but you're asking your bookkeeper how to raise/allocate capital? Then your next best bet is to have an internal Operating System that you - yes, you, as founder, needs to know cold.

Professional boards please: only directors with actual management, operational, investment or audit experience and deep industry knowledge. It's more work than just quarterly conference calls: we are stewards who must spend meaningful time IN the business to provide sound advice twitter.com/saq3/status/93…

We really only have a day with our children: a new person arrives each morning, leaving only memories on photographs

Before there were empires, there were ledgers. Not carved in marble, but in clay. A running tally of what we built, borrowed, owed, and risked. Accounting didn’t just record history. It gave us the clarity to carry it forward. 👇Journal Entry 001: A Brief History of Accounting

@BojanRadojici10 We were hammered as analysts to build cash sweeps, such a critical nuance in project financing. Would love to see how you built yours ! Send please 🙏🏽

How to model debt? Make sure what amount of cash is free for debt repayment. I do this with a Cash Flow Sweep. It ensures that excess cash is used to repay debt early, reducing interest costs and improving financial stability. This is especially critical in LBOs, project finance and corporate debt structuring. ✅ Here’s a simple breakdown of debt modeling in a few steps: 1️⃣ Set initial debt assumptions and valuation. 2️⃣ Forecast financial statements, starting with revenue and EBITDA. 3️⃣ Build the cash flow statement to determine free cash flow (FCF). 4️⃣ Model debt repayment, calculating principal payments and adjusting interest expenses. Then you can stat building different debt schedules like revolver, senior and mezz. Want this model in Excel? Drop a comment and I will send you a file (important note: follow me so I can DM you)

@BojanRadojici10 Send please ! 🙏🏽

MRR + ARR Forecast Model! MRR and ARR as powerful tools for subscription-based businesses, enable them to make informed decisions, understand revenue patterns, and drive sustainable growth in a highly competitive market. ▶ 𝗪𝗛𝗔𝗧 𝗜𝗦 𝗜𝗡𝗖𝗟𝗨𝗗𝗘𝗗 𝗜𝗡 𝗧𝗛𝗜𝗦 𝗘𝗫𝗖𝗘𝗟 𝗠𝗢𝗗𝗘𝗟: · Key assumptions for MRR and ARR forecasting · Historical data as a good forecasting base · New users forecast · User churn forecast · Total new users forecast · Upgrade effects in the forecast · Downgrade effects in the forecast · MRR forecast in the next 36 months · ARR forecast in the next 3 years Want this model in Excel? Drop a comment and I will send you a file (important note: follow me so I can DM you)

@BojanRadojici10 Awesome ! Please share 🙏🏽

35 Ratio Numbers Calculated based on Financial Statements. 𝗪𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝗶𝘀 𝗶𝗻𝗰𝗹𝘂𝗱𝗲𝗱: Income statement [𝗽𝗲𝗿𝗶𝗼𝗱𝗶𝗰𝗮𝗹, 𝘄𝗶𝘁𝗵 𝗰𝗼𝗹𝘂𝗺𝗻 𝗼𝗳 𝗰𝗵𝗮𝗻𝗴𝗲𝘀] Balance sheet [𝗽𝗲𝗿𝗶𝗼𝗱𝗶𝗰𝗮𝗹, 𝘄𝗶𝘁𝗵 𝗰𝗼𝗹𝘂𝗺𝗻 𝗼𝗳 𝗰𝗵𝗮𝗻𝗴𝗲𝘀] Cash flow [𝗳𝘂𝗹𝗹 𝗰𝗮𝗹𝗰𝘂𝗹𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻 𝗯𝗮𝘀𝗲𝗱 𝗼𝗻 𝗕𝗦 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗜𝗦] 9 Profitability ratios 6 Liquidity ratios 9 Efficiency ratios 10 Ratios of financial structure Budget vs actual Actual vs last period Peer to peer analysis Want Excel template with all calculations? Drop a comment and I will send you a file (important note: follow me so I can DM you)

@Sam_Rosati 💯 Works for lenders too: understanding how a business prioritizes their payments is a goldmine of behavior patterns. Understanding cash flow dynamics should be as routine as getting a blood test before being diagnosed by a doctor.

Most underrated diligence item in SMB acquisitions? Cash flow dynamics. When you’re buying with debt (a lot of it), you better understand how cash actually moves. Meaning purchasing cycles, invoice timing, collections, payments. It's by far the biggest contributor to financial stress in SMB deals

@BojanRadojici10 Truth ! Share please 🙏🏽

So many finance professionals struggle with building a Cash Flow Statement using the indirect method—leading to errors, misinterpretations, and even disastrous decisions. 𝗪𝗮𝗻𝘁 𝘁𝗵𝗶𝘀 𝗘𝘅𝗰𝗲𝗹?? 𝗝𝘂𝘀𝘁 𝗰𝗼𝗺𝗺𝗲𝗻𝘁 𝘁𝗵𝗶𝘀 𝗽𝗼𝘀𝘁 and follow me, 𝘀𝗼 𝗜 𝗰𝗮𝗻 𝘀𝗲𝗻𝗱 𝘆𝗼𝘂 𝗮 𝗳𝗶𝗹𝗲.

@BoringBiz_ The Wisdom of Finance. Reveals how our everyday decisions demonstrate our innate financial acumen : simply by navigating through an uncertain world.

What is your favorite book related to finance or investing? Ideally something that you keep coming back to again and again Need a few good recommendations

@PatOnTheLevel This should be season 2 ! When we allow our youth to build...

This 16-year-old made the ballsiest AI move. While classmates studied for exams, he coded all night. No investors. No mentors. Just pure determination. His options? Accept the system or challenge Big Tech. His "absurd" vision would secure $1 MILLION: 🧵

@BoringBiz_ I sound like a broken record : balance sheets are where the dead bodies are buried.

Back in 2002, famous money manager Peter Lynch was asked what the biggest mistake investors make are His response? Not spending enough time looking at the balance sheet