Episode 2: How to Build a Financial Model at Seed Stage with Steven Plappert of Forecastr
Steven Plappert, CEO of Forecastr, on financial modeling for startups raising a seed round.
Fractional COO · B2B SaaS · Pre-seed to Series A
You're the founder, the closer, the ops lead, and the strategist. That's the problem.
StairStep Strategies embeds with pre-seed to Series A B2B SaaS founders as a fractional COO — so your startup can become a real business, not just a really good product.
That's not a product problem. It's an operations problem.
Meet Larson →The problem
A great product is just the beginning.
You've found something real. Maybe you've got traction. Maybe you've even got customers who love you. But somewhere between early momentum and actual scale, a gap opens up — and founders fall into it.
Sales isn't systematic. Marketing is whatever you had time for. Customer onboarding runs on heroics. Finance is a spreadsheet you haven't updated since Q1.
That's not a product problem. It's an operations problem.
What I do
Fractional COO for B2B SaaS startups that are ready to grow up.
I step in as your part-time chief operating officer — not to advise from the sidelines, but to own the work alongside you. I work across everything except engineering and product:
Sales & revenue operations
Marketing & demand generation
Customer success & onboarding
Business operations & process
Financial planning & modeling
Fundraising strategy & process
If your startup needs it and it's not engineering or product, it's in scope.
How it works
Progress isn't a moonshot. It's a staircase.
You don't fix everything at once. You find the constraint that matters most, solve it completely, and step up to the next one.
01 — Diagnose
Find the real bottleneck
We start with a clear-eyed look at where the real constraints are. Not where they feel like they are.
02 — Prioritize
Pick the highest-leverage move
We identify the one or two moves that will unlock the most leverage in the business right now.
03 — Execute
Do the work, not just the thinking
I don't hand you a deck and disappear. I'm in it with you — doing the work, not just advising on it.
04 — Scale
Build it to run without you
Once something works, we build the systems and handoffs that make it stick without you holding it together.
Why StairStep
I've been on your side of the table.
Before StairStep, I co-founded a startup that went through Techstars Boulder. I know what it feels like when the business outpaces the team — when you're doing five jobs, none of them well, and you're not sure which fire to fight first.
That experience is the difference between an advisor who gives you frameworks and an operator who gives a damn about your outcomes.
I work across the full business, not just one function. I do the work, not just the thinking.
Client results
"He's hands-on in a way most advisors aren't."
"When we brought Larson on, our biggest gap was sales and marketing. We had the product — we just weren't picking up the phone. He got us comfortable with cold calling, helped us build a real pipeline process, and within 6 months we'd closed over $1M in seed funding. Three months after that, our sales pipeline looks completely different. He also worked with us on board meetings and investor updates to the point where they actually drive decisions now."
- $1M+ seed closed
- Pipeline built from scratch
- Board meetings that drive decisions
Resources
Writing on operations, fundraising, and building real businesses.
Your Selling Process Has Nothing to Do with Your Buyer
Most sales training focuses on what sellers do next. But there are two processes running in parallel on every deal, yours and the buyer's. Learn how to map the buyer's process and stop letting deals stall for reasons you can't see.
Read →The StairStep method: how early-stage startups build operational leverage one step at a time
The most common mistake I see with early-stage SaaS founders isn't that they're building the wrong things operationally. It's that they're building in the wrong order. The StairStep method exists to fix that, starting with an honest diagnostic before a single thing gets built.
Read →The five things a founder should stop doing after closing a seed round
Just closed your seed round? Here are the five things founders need to stop doing, and what to build in their place.
Read →Musings of an Entrepreneur
Founder conversations on sales, fundraising, and early-stage growth.
Episode 1: How to Generate More Leads at Seed Stage with Nate Stoltenow of Humble Co.
Lead generation strategies and best practices for early-stage startups.
Ready to build a real business?
If you're a pre-seed to Series A B2B SaaS founder who's tired of being the answer to every question, let's talk. The first conversation is free, 30 minutes, and low-pressure.
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