Victor Lanqvist
venture investor
Growth-minded and persuasive; underestimates founder burnout
Runway
Users like the product; not enough of them pay for it. Nadia’s investors want growth, her co-founder wants a pivot and her savings are gone.
Planned · not started yet
Business & entrepreneurship Ambition Living with uncertainty Hard choices City life Workplace Tense Bracing
The premise
Users like the product; not enough of them pay for it. Nadia’s investors want growth, her co-founder wants a pivot and her savings are gone. The series follows every decision against a shrinking bank balance and a friendship that may not survive the company.
The protagonist
Nadia Ferreira-Holt — Founder of a clinic-scheduling app with eleven months of money left
The council
Every council member is an original fictional character. None represents, quotes or is endorsed by a real person.
Jo Pemberton-Asante
bootstrapped founder
Revenue-first; distrusts outside money
Dr Hana Ostrowski
product researcher
Evidence-first; insists on talking to customers before building
Felix Moorcroft
insolvency practitioner
Unsentimental; believes closing well beats failing slowly
How the story moves
Eleven months to zero; each book covers a quarter of runway, and the co-founder relationship frays as the choices narrow.
What readers take away
- Calculate burn rate and runway
- Unit economics: acquisition cost and lifetime value
- Run customer-discovery interviews
- Read product-market-fit signals
- Fundraising rounds, dilution and term sheets
- Evaluate a pivot with evidence
- Cut costs and lay off staff lawfully and humanely
- Wind-down and acquisition options
- Read a simple SAFE or convertible note
- Build an investor update
- Recognise founder burnout and its business effects
- Calculate payback period on customer acquisition
The books
- 1Eleven months Planned
- 2The customers Planned
- 3The term sheet Planned
- 4The pivot Planned
- 5Month zero Planned
Book titles are working titles and may change before publication. No book is on sale until the complete series is finished, checked and released.