Q&A with Founder Aarish and CTO Kayleigh

Aarish Shah, CEO and Founder

Q: What is Projected?

A: Projected is a forecasting tool to help businesses make better decisions. The way we do that is by taking them through a really quick onboarding process so that they can get a very quick financial model built and in the future as we continue to build, they will then be able to iterate upon that model by editing their existing scenario, creating new scenarios, and comparing those scenarios.

Q: Why did you create Projected?

A: The reason I founded Projected was because you know, in every single business that we've either talked to or worked with, one of the fundamental things that we have been asked to do is build a financial model. When I started thinking about how we build these financial models and what it takes I started to realise that, first of all, financial models built in Excel or in Google Sheets are great but they are very static and they're obsolete the minute you built them because they're very hard to change and update and often things move really quickly, especially in early stage or growth ventures where you have changing dynamics month on month. And, one of the other massive problems with them is that they're not particularly user-friendly in that if I come in as a CFO and build a model and then leave it with the founder or leave it with the finance team, it's really hard for them to manipulate because they have to work out how I built the model, where all the levers are, how the formulas work, and really sort of decide whether it's better to build a new model from scratch or try to work with what they've got.

Q: What are the future plans for Projected?

A: As we move forward we will then integrate further with existing software. So, that's things like Xero, Quickbooks, CRMs, Hubspot and others so that we can drive live data into those models so you can actually update them without needing human input. One of the features I'm really looking forward to is the ability to compare across scenarios. We've had conversations with founders of large, multimillion-pound businesses who are running 30 spreadsheets at a time, and they're using those spreadsheets to make decisions because they are not able to combine those onto a single source of information which they can use to make decisions 

Kayleigh Oliver, CTO

Q: What is Projected?

A: Projected is a tool to help pre-seed founders and small business owners manage their finances now and into the near future.

Q: What makes Projected’s offer different to using an excel spreadsheet?

A: The problem with a spreadsheet is that it’s a blank canvas. You need to have a level of financial knowledge in order to to accurately create a model that you can work from and get the outputs and insights that you require. And that could take you weeks to do by yourself! With Projected, even if you have no finance knowledge, you can get a simple model created within 20 minutes. 

Q: What is your favourite feature of the product?

A: My favourite feature of the product is the ability to tweak my revenue drivers and see the outcome of those changes clearly in straight figures or graphs.

Q: How is Projected beneficial for those who are already financially literate?

A: Projected can also benefit those that are already financially literate because it systematises the work so that building a model will be the same no matter how many clients you need to do this for.

Q: What are the benefits of Projected for those that are just starting out?

A: Loads and more will be coming all the time as we grow and develop.

• Get a financial model without hiring a CFO.
• Produce a basic model within a short time frame.
• Affordable price.
• Integrations with your current day-today tools to run your business