An ask has three parts, and the third is what separates a fundable slide from a hopeful one. How much, what it's spent on, and what state the company is in when it's gone.
Worked example: Yardpost's $3,500,000 use of funds
Yardpost asks for $3,500,000. Uses break into five lines: sales capacity of four account executives and two sales-development representatives at $1,480,000 (42.29%), product and engineering across five hires at $1,120,000 (32.00%), implementation and support across three hires at $420,000 (12.00%), demand generation at $290,000 (8.29%), and general administration, tooling and buffer at $190,000 (5.43%). They sum to the ask with nothing left over. That sounds trivial, and every investor who has been burned once checks it. People are 86.29% of the raise. That's a fair description of what a seed round buys, and it's better said than left for the reader to infer.
Five categories is the right resolution for a use-of-funds chart, and a sorted bar, largest first, with the percentage labelled, does the whole job. A pie is wrong here because five slices force angle comparison. It's wrong before that, too. The message here is "sales capacity is the biggest single use", and that compares categories. It isn't a part-to-whole claim.
Advertisement
How do you tie the ask to a milestone?
Then there's the milestone, which is the part that gets skipped. Yardpost's is $4,200,000 of annual recurring revenue in eighteen months, which is where the founders' own conversations with Series A investors put the bar in this category. That bar moves with the funding cycle, so the slide carries it as a dated working assumption. From $1,437,640 that requires $2,762,360 of net new recurring revenue, or 2,762,360 / 18 = $153,464 a month. In the most recent quarter the company added $341,040 of net new, which is $113,680 a month, so the plan requires 1.350 times the demonstrated rate.
Decompose that requirement, because the decomposition is what makes the slide checkable. At 112.00% net revenue retention, the existing base grows to 1,437,640 × 1.12^1.5 = $1,704,030 over eighteen months, contributing $266,390 by itself. So new logos must supply 4,200,000 − 1,704,030 = $2,495,970. At a plan contract value of $30,000 that's 83.199 logos, so 84.
How do you test the plan's capacity and cash?
Then check the capacity against something demonstrated. Four account executives with a three-month ramp give 4 × (18 − 3) = 60 selling months, so the plan needs 84 / 60 = 1.400 logos per account-executive month. Last quarter produced 11 logos from 6 account-executive months, which is 1.8333. So the plan requires 76.36% of the demonstrated rate and carries a cushion of 23.64%. That's a defensible plan, and the reader wants the slide to say so plainly. The plan needs a close rate 23.64% below what the team has already shown.
Cash arithmetic closes the loop. Add the raise to $1,180,000 of existing cash and you have $4,680,000. Spending $3,600,000 over eighteen months averages $200,000 a month, with burn at $180,000 a month by month eighteen, leaving $1,080,000, or 6.00 months of runway at the milestone. Six months is thin, and the slide says so. A reader who computes it and finds you didn't mention it will assume you didn't know.
What else belongs on or near the ask?
Two more things belong on or near the ask. First is the sensitivity. If the fourth account-executive hire slips ninety days, the plan loses 3 × 1.400 = 4.20 logos, which is $126,000 of recurring revenue, or 4.56% of what's required. A single named risk with its cost computed is worth more than a risks slide with six bullets.
Second is the burn multiple, net burn divided by net new recurring revenue. It was 1.599 over the last twelve months and is planned at 1.303 over the next eighteen. Yardpost's whole plan rests on the claim that efficiency improves while the company grows, and that claim is one number.