Okuzeka
Entrepreneurship & Startups vocabulary · Unit Economics & Metrics

Cash flow

Meaning in entrepreneurship & startups, with examples

/ˈkæʃ floʊ/nounCommon term

In entrepreneurship & startups, cash flow means: The movement of money into and out of a business over a period. Positive cash flow means more money is coming in than going out.

In Turkish: nakit akışı

How it is used

A profitable company can still fail if customers pay late and cash runs out, so founders watch cash flow closely. People say cash-flow positive, negative cash flow, cash flow forecast and cash flow problems.

Example sentences

  1. We became cash-flow positive in March, so we no longer depend on the next round.

  2. Big clients pay in 90 days, which creates cash flow problems for a small team like ours.

Common collocations

  • cash-flow positive
  • negative cash flow
  • cash flow forecast
  • cash flow problems
  • manage cash flow
  • burn rateThe amount of money a startup spends each month beyond what it earns, showing how fast it is using up the cash in the bank.
  • runwayThe number of months a startup can keep operating before its cash runs out, usually calculated as cash in the bank divided by monthly net burn.
  • profitableMaking more money than it spends, so that a business has money left after paying all its costs over a period.
  • revenueThe total money a company earns from selling its products or services in a period, before any costs are taken away.
  • break evenTo reach the point where revenue equals costs, so the company is neither losing money nor making a profit.

This word in other fields

The same English word can have a different meaning in another field:

More terms: Unit Economics & Metrics

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