Free calculator · Venture & Startup Finance
Affordable Loss, the Constrained Founder’s Budget
Calculates an affordable-loss budget, the months of experimentation it buys, and the personal cash floor a founder keeps if the venture fails. Inputs are personal savings, the share of savings committed, monthly venture spend, and monthly side income.
Interactive Tool
Affordable Loss, the Constrained Founder's Budget
Months of experimentation
9.0 mo
affordable-loss budget ÷ net monthly spend
Affordable-loss budget
$10,800
savings × affordable-loss %
Protected cash floor
$7,200
what failure cannot touch
Net monthly spend
$1,200
spend − side income
Total at risk
60%
of personal savings
Sarasvathy's expert founders reason from means, not projections: commit only what you can afford to lose, buy months of real experiments with it, and keep a floor that failure cannot touch. The budget buys learning, not the whole dream at once.
Learn the concept
This calculator comes from the free Entrepreneurial Finance course, where the concept is taught with readings, worked examples, and practice questions.
Built by Devon Coombs, CPA, MBA, Teaching Professor of Finance at Santa Clara University.