The biggest mistake I see founders make has nothing to do with their product.
It is not marketing, sales, or fundraising. It is that they do not own their numbers.
I know this because I spent the first half of my career pulling those numbers apart in Big Four advisory. My job was helping venture capital and private equity firms assess companies. I reviewed models, challenged assumptions, and answered one question: does this business actually stack up?
I constantly saw the same imbalance. A founder would pour months into building a great product, then throw together the financial model that decided the company's future in a single weekend.
Twenty years later, not much has changed. AI makes building a product easier than ever, but understanding whether you should build it remains hard. Founders ship remarkable software in weeks, yet they still make calls on pricing, hiring, and fundraising using spreadsheets they do not fully understand. If you do not own the assumptions, you do not own the model. And if you do not own the model, you are flying blind.
Our Journey Toward Simplifying Startup Finance
We did not set out to build a forecasting tool. We started with Radley Tax, software designed to automate R&D tax claims and help founders recover money earned through innovation.
But as we worked through regional incentive rules, a pattern emerged. To qualify for these incentives, you cannot just prove you are innovating. You have to prove your business is viable. You need to show that you understand your model, your growth, and your capital needs. This led us back to the same question: why is it still so hard for a founder to build a model they actually own?
The existing options are frustrating. You can pay a consultant thousands and wait weeks for a spreadsheet, build it yourself and hope for the best, or hand it to an AI tool and pray there is not a hidden math error.
Institutional Finance Expertise, Tailored for Founders
One of my co-founders, Lisa Hirschbeck, and I have decades of experience between us in finance, tax, and advisory. Lisa is a CPA and CA with an MBA, a master’s in international taxation, and experience lecturing in finance. Cumulatively, we have worked on more than four billion dollars in transactions.
But our core takeaway was not technical. Founders do not need another complex spreadsheet. They need confidence. They need to know their assumptions hold up, they are raising the right amount, and they can answer tough investor questions without flinching.
Our main goal is to make sure you never feel out of your depth. Nobody starts a company because they love financial models. You should be focused on your customers and your product. The numbers underneath are our job, so you can stop worrying and focus on building.
Radley Finance walks you through the core assumptions that drive your business. It explains them, benchmarks them against industry standards, and flags the ones that look off. The software gets most founders about 80% of the way there.
Then we step in. For our first 100 founders, Lisa and I will personally review every model. We will sit down with you, push on your assumptions, answer your questions, and help sharpen the numbers. There are no consulting fees or handoffs. It is just hands-on help from people who know the industry.
Validation from the Founder Community
We've been quietly working with a small group of founders in New Zealand. One of them, Euan from Emplify, told us recently that Radley "got us to a credible first view in minutes, and to an investor-grade model in an hour or two."
What I loved about that wasn't just the speed. It was what came next — that walking into investor meetings, it gave him real confidence. Because confidence is the thing we're actually trying to build. He also put his finger on something we care about deeply: that the guidance "keeps it simple and sets sensible guardrails rather than leaving you staring at a blank page."
That's exactly it. We don't want founders frozen in front of an empty spreadsheet. We want them making better decisions.
Help Shape the Future of Financial Forecasting
We are based in New Zealand and Canada, and we do not have massive networks in the US. Instead of buying attention, we want to earn it one founder at a time.
We are looking for 100 founders preparing to raise capital over the next year. In return for your feedback, you will get an investor-grade financial model, an analysis from our "Cynical CFO" feature, and a live session with Lisa and me to challenge your assumptions before you meet investors. You get decades of transactional experience and a say in how our platform evolves.
Our Roadmap for Non-Dilutive Startup Funding
Radley Finance is just the beginning. Radley Tax comes next, helping companies recover what they invest in innovation through R&D incentives. For startups, this is meaningful, non-dilutive funding. Additionally, every dollar you spend with on Radley Finance becomes a credit toward Radley Tax.
By joining us early, you are not just buying a forecasting tool. You are helping build a system that helps founders raise smarter and keep more of what they earn.
Let's build a stronger company together.
