Case Study
How Demostack Forecasted Payroll and Vendor Expenses to Scale Operations and Headcount with Raftel Strategy
We partnered with Demostack to build strategic models for payroll and vendor expenses—ultimately enabling the company to save tens of thousands of dollars on negotiated vendor deals and forecast expenses to understand cash burn and runway.
90%
Increase in efficiency
95%
Churn forecast accuracy improvement
68%
Cash flow forecast improvement
Our Solution
Because our team has worked with 70+ companies, including many rapidly-growing SaaS companies, David Weiseneck—VP Finance at Demostack—reports that we brought a unique strategic expertise to model building — demonstrating a deep understanding not only of the numbers, but also of the strategy implications for runway and the business. Since then, Demostack has benefited from our solution in two significant ways.
01: Raftel Strategy helps growing startups with small finance teams to eliminate redundancies and save money by earning better deals with vendors
Building a streamlined model to track vendor expenses is critical for scaling startups to save on their tech stack. But too many startups have small finance teams and lack the capacity to build effective models that help them do this. So, when Demostack partnered with Raftel Strategy, they were impressed by just how quickly we built sophisticated but easy-to-use models for their exact needs. As a result, Demostack could predict future spending accurately and identify opportunities for consolidation and cost-saving. It accounted for both annual and monthly payments, offering insights into cash flow and budgeting for software expenses across different teams.
02: Raftel Strategy builds expert financial models for scaling startups to accurately forecast expenses
According to Dave, VP Finance at Demostack, what differentiates models by Raftel Strategy is our ability to built dynamic and flexible models that allow for easy scenario-testing. Dave was impressed by how well-designed and user-friendly our models were too, and how they integrated deep understanding of the business and not only the financials. With our customized payroll model, Demostack could engage in strategic planning for both expansion and contraction phases, providing a clear view of financial commitments and implications for cash burn and runway in the future.
Background
Demostack wanted to streamline vendor spend and forecast payroll to reduce redundancies and optimize run-rate until their next fundraise
Many small startups do not have a centralized procurement team to negotiate good deals with vendors, resulting in redundant spending and missed opportunities for volume discounts. With more than 100 vendors, Demostack needed a model to accurately predict spending, both on an accrual and cash basis, and optimize budget allocations across various teams. They also wanted an easy way to establish a centralized procurement process to save costs.
Payroll is generally the largest cost in companies, and especially for scaling startups that need to plan for headcount expansion. Since Demostack was planning to double their headcount, they needed to understand the financial implications of these hires to know their runway and how much money remained annually for different accounts. As experts in strategic model building, Raftel Strategy underwent an intensive process with Demostack to understand their exact needs and build a tailor-made product to help them effectively plan for the future.
Impact
Following these results, our partnership was renewed as their outsourced FP&A team. We continue to forecast expenses and help them scale operations with our sophisticated but easy-to-use models.
68%
Cash flow forecast improvement
95%
Churn forecast accuracy
90%
Increase in efficiency
Partnering with Raftel Strategy not only streamlined Demostack's vendor and payroll spend but also enabled long-term forecasting into their next fundraise, supporting both immediate needs and long-term strategic goals.
"Before partnering with Raftel Strategy, our approach to managing vendor spend and forecasting payroll was fragmented and inefficient. This made it challenging to optimize our budget as we prepared to scale.
Raftel Strategy's financial expertise and strategic insights were crucial in helping us grow quickly and prevent costly mistakes."
"Working with Raftel Strategy was a game changer for us. They whipped up smart, easy-to-use financial models that did exactly what we needed.
Within months we were saving money and making better decisions thanks to the tools they provided. It was like they knew our business inside-out from day one."
Overview
Demostack is a B2B SaaS platform enabling sales teams to design demos for their products. The company has raised $51.5M to date.
