Who This Helps
This is for Product Managers who are tired of scrambling before board meetings. If you're manually pulling data from five different places to explain your runway, the Board Finance & Runway Narrative course shows you a better way. You'll turn those frantic updates into a smooth, automated story.
Mini Case
Sam, a PM at a growing SaaS company, spent 8 hours every quarter manually building their runway report. They'd pull numbers from finance, engineering, and sales, then stitch it into a deck. After setting up an automated narrative, they cut that time to 30 minutes. Their board now gets weekly updates, and Sam has reclaimed 30+ hours per quarter for actual product work. That's a win.
Do This Now (5 Steps)
- Gather your key sources. List where your runway, burn rate, and headcount data lives right now (e.g., spreadsheet, BI tool, payroll system).
- Define the one story. What's the single most important thing your board needs to know about your financial health this month?
- Connect the dots. Use a simple automation tool (many have AI helpers) to link those data sources. No coding needed.
- Set the rhythm. Schedule the report to run and send itself every Monday morning. Consistency is your new best friend.
- Review and refine. Check the first two automated outputs. Tweak the narrative focus based on what your leadership team asks.
Avoid These Traps
- Chasing perfect data. Don't wait for 100% clean data. Start with your best 80% and improve from there. A good story now is better than a perfect one never.
- Over-explaining. Your board cares about trends and implications, not every single decimal point. Keep it high-level.
- Forgetting the 'why'. A number is just a number. Always pair it with a reason. "Runway is 18 months because we delayed the marketing hire" is a narrative.
- Setting and forgetting. Business changes. Review your automated setup quarterly to ensure it's still telling the right story.
- Manual overrides. If you find yourself constantly editing the auto-generated report, your sources or logic are wrong. Fix the root cause.
Your Win by Friday
By this Friday, you can have your core runway data flowing into a single, auto-updating document. You'll eliminate the pre-meeting scramble for your next check-in. The goal isn't just a report—it's confidence. You'll walk into discussions knowing the numbers are current and the context is clear, so you can focus on the decision, not the data hunt.