Financial Modeling for Entrepreneurs 401: Build Your Own Financial Model (Instant Startup)

Build a financial model for your own business or technology with this practical step-by-step guide.

Why Should Entrepreneurs Build Their Own Financial Models?

Watch this short video to find out (03:35)


About this course

You need to build a financial model to make decisions or assess an opportunity, but you don't know where to start.

What type of model? Where do I find market information? How do I estimate sales revenue and expenses? How do I generate different scenarios?

This practical, step-by-step course guides you all the way in building a financial model for your own business, technology or idea.

By the end, you will have a working financial model for your own business, technology, product, service or invention.


Full Financial Model Spreadsheet Template

Included in this course is a full financial model spreadsheet template that you can download and use to model your own business or technology's finances.

You complete the required information, and it automatically generates a full set of financial statements (income statement, balance sheet and cash flow statement), several graphs, a financial summary as well as a company or technology valuation.

Here are example screenshots from the template:


What will I gain? What will I be able to do?

  • Be able to do market research and data sourcing for modeling a business or technology’s finances
  • Build a spreadsheet financial model for a business or technology, including production of financial statements based on sales projections and other inputs and assumptions
  • Use the spreadsheet model to assess the financial viability of a business or technology
  • Do scenarios and sensitivity analysis using the spreadsheet model

Your Instructor


Dr. Sean Moolman
Dr. Sean Moolman

Dr. Sean Moolman has a broad range of experience stretching across chemical plant design and cost engineering, R&D (research and development), management of innovation, technology transfer, intellectual property management and entrepreneurship. He is an inventor on several international patent families.

Sean is a co-founder of PowerOptimal (Pty) Ltd, a renewable energy technology company, and has served on the boards of several other early-stage companies. Before his first start-up, Sean was the head of technology transfer (licensing & ventures) at the largest R&D institute in Africa, the CSIR in South Africa.

He has a PhD in Chemical Engineering, is a Registered Technology Transfer Professional (RTTP) with the ATTP, is a member of the Licensing Executives Society of South Africa (LES) and has completed the Management Advancement Programme at Wits Business School.

Sean regularly presents courses in financial modeling and technology & startup valuation, including for the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), the Licensing Executives Society of South Africa (LES) and the Southern African Research and Innovation Management Association (SARIMA). He collaborated with the LES to develop their 3-day advanced Intellectual Property Valuation course.

Sean is passionate about innovation, entrepreneurship, reason and science, life-long learning and inspiring people!


Course Curriculum


  Chapter 1 - Course Introduction and Overview
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  Chapter 2 - Steps in Building a Financial Model
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  Chapter 3 - Market Research and Data Collection
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days after you enroll

Course duration, difficulty and background required

Background required:
  • Basic background in financial concepts like time value of money (Course 101)
  • Ability to build spreadsheets (Course 201)
  • Ability to read, interpret and analyze financial statements (Course 301)

If you do not have any background in one or more of the above areas, please consider doing the corresponding course first.

For an explanation of all course gradings, click here.


❓ FAQ - Frequently Asked Questions


Course questions

This course is for entrepreneurs, innovators, inventors, technology managers and technology transfer professionals.

You need to understand and use financial models, and in many cases you have to build them as well, but you don't have a strong financial background. This course has been designed and developed specifically for you.

Even if you yourself will not be doing financial modeling regularly, this course is an excellent primer for you to:

  • ask the right questions of others' financial models
  • interpret and use financial models
  • spot errors or deliberate deception in others' models
  • understand the value and limitations of financial models

  • Video lectures
  • Graded quizzes
  • Course completion certificate
  • Downloads:
    • Example spreadsheets: Financial models at 3 levels of detail
    • Guidelines: Online search basics; Data sources; How to estimate total addressable market; Cost estimation methodologies; Three levels of financial model detail
    • Reference sheets: Ten steps in building a financial model; Market & industry analysis tools; Sales projections methodologies
    • Checklist: Expenses
    • Template: Full financial model spreadsheet template
  • Access to student discussions on lectures & lecturer answers to questions
  • For the Coaching package: One-on-one consultation with lecturer

Financial Modeling for Entrepreneurs Course Series This course (Financial Modeling for Entrepreneurs 401: Build Your Own Financial Model) is the fourth of four courses in the Financial Modeling for Entrepreneurs Course Series.

The first three courses (courses 101 to 301) provide skills sets in 3 different areas, building up to this 4th course (course 401), where you will learn to build your own full financial model and use it to analyze your business or technology.

Yes, definitely - each course is a fully standalone course. You can enroll and do any individual course or combination of courses as per your needs and skills gaps. (See "Course duration, difficulty and background required" section above for background required for this course.)

The course starts now and never ends! It is a completely self-paced online course - you decide when you start and when you finish.

You have unlimited access to the course for two years - across any and all devices you own.

The course has 4 hours of video lectures. Together with the quizzes and building your own financial models, you should be able to complete the course in only 3 weeks, if you commit just 90 minutes per day. You can do this!

I would never want you to be unhappy! If you are unsatisfied with your purchase, contact me in the first 30 days and I will give you a full refund.

  • 2-year access to the course materials
  • Work at your own pace
  • Review or redo any part whenever you want to
  • Pause and pick up again at any point
  • Downloadable materials, quizzes and exercises reinforce the learning and provide practical tools that you can apply in your own business or activities immediately
General questions

Don't waste your time wading through avalanches of generic and poor-quality information. I know what you need, because I have been through it myself (from commercializing my own patented inventions to managing R&D technology and patent portfolios, to running the commercialization arm of a large R&D institution, to serving on start-up investment panels, to starting my own technology business).

With the overload of information that we all have to deal with, curation and synthesis of quality and value-added content have become critical in efficient and effective learning.

A paid course means that I have put in the hard work and effort to synthesize useful knowledge into a quality, structured and usable package that can help you develop your skills much faster and more effectively.

Financial modeling refers to the process of building a model (typically spreadsheet-based) of the financial aspects and implications of things in the real world (such as technologies, intellectual property, businesses, etc.) for analysis and decision-making.

It is widely applied in the innovation space, for example:

  • Assessing commercial potential of products, processes, services and business models;
  • Company valuation;
  • R&D and other investment decisions;
  • Building budgets;
  • Valuing IP (intellectual property);
  • Monitoring & evaluating project or business performance.

Get started now!