5: Financing

To be a successful entrepreneur, your primary focus should always be on your customer. Operations and finance, while important, should not distract for too long from the customer. That being said, it is important to develop financial literacy to interpret the messages that your operations are sending. To be sure, not understanding underlying financial data puts your business in a bad position; however, basic financial literacy does not require a graduate degree in accounting. In this chapter, we will focus on some of the most important financial tools used to assess your startup venture and try to demystify financial statement jargon.