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Ascendit is a content series focused on the intersection of finance and entrepreneurship. Its purpose is to bring financial concepts from the corporate world into clear, actionable insights that help individuals and builders achieve sustainable growth.
📕 Tuesdays deliver the Ascendit Playbook: one big idea, applied to personal finance and entrepreneurship, plus a practical tool to put it into action.
🌍 Thursdays bring Ascendit Radar: a financial update and job opportunities in startups shaping markets, business, and strategy.
After analyzing companies and trying to manage my own personal finances to build a solid foundation, I realized something : the same financial patterns apply to both businesses and individuals.
Whether it’s a corporation preparing quarterly statements or a young professional tracking expenses, the same rule emerges: what matters most is not revenue or salary, but cash flow.
💡 The Big Idea
Most of us grow up thinking that income is the main measure of financial progress. Promotions, pay raises, side hustles — they all feel like signs of success.
But income is static. It only shows how much money comes in.
Cash flow is dynamic. It tells you how money actually moves, and whether you’re building reserves or burning through them.
That’s why income can look impressive, yet cash flow reveals the truth.
📊 Financial Growth
When I mapped my own finances into a cash flow structure, it became clear:
- Income: €1,200/month
- Expenses: €800/month
- Net Cash Flow: +€400/month
The €1,200 salary wasn’t the number that mattered most. The key was the €400 left after expenses. That surplus became the basis for savings, investments, and new opportunities.
This is the same way investors assess companies. They don’t only look at top-line revenue. They focus on operating cash flow, investing activities, and financing activities to judge whether the company is truly sustainable.
In personal finance, this is the key principle:
- What you keep matters more than what you make.
- Net cash flow determines whether you are accumulating assets or simply recycling your income back into expenses.
This is why some people with high salaries still feel broke, while others with modest incomes quietly build wealth.
🛠️ Builder’s Corner
Startups face the same challenge, only magnified. Revenue is celebrated, but cash flow determines survival.
Two metrics summarize this:
- Burn Rate → how much cash is consumed each month
- Runway → how long the company can operate before the cash balance hits zero (calculated as cash ÷ burn rate)
This framework isn’t just for Silicon Valley founders. Any entrepreneur needs to manage inflows (sales, funding) against outflows (operations, payroll, marketing).
It’s possible to grow revenue quickly and still go bankrupt if burn isn’t under control. The smartest builders measure runway constantly — not to limit ambition, but to keep ambition sustainable.
For anyone launching a venture, the question mirrors personal finance:
👉 Are you chasing revenue, or are you building healthy cash flow?
🧰 Toolbox
To apply these concepts, I designed a fully automated Personal Finance Tracker.
Make sure to download the file in Excel format, Google Sheets can bring some problems!
Financial growth doesn’t start with complicated investments — it starts with visibility and discipline.
📈 This is Playbook #1. In the next editions, I’ll dive deeper into finances and the bridge to entrepreneurship. Would you like to follow the series? Make sure to follow Ascendit on Instagram for a recap 💯
