As a product leader, you're not expected to be an accountant. However, finance is the common language at the C-suite and board. To succeed, you need fluency in relevant aspects of corporate finance. Without it, you won't be taken seriously. This class will expose you to the essential areas in a rigorous manner.

The class is a mix of lecture and structured exercises/cases based on real scenarios. We'll then constantly tie our financial analyses back to strategic product decisions. Ultimately this is a product leadership class, just with a focus on finance.

Class 1: Learn how an income statement tells a story and feeds into product decisions

Class 2: Best practices for modeling, using models for alignment, and communicating your analyses to the C-Suite/board

Class 3: Revenue models, packaging/bundling, and pricing

Class 4: Business valuation, differences in owner/investor classes, and why this is crucial for product leaders to understand

The classes themselves are 90 minutes, with an additional weekly Q&A session (optional) and take-home assignment.

Each week there is a modeling exercise. We begin classes 2, 3, and 4 with a detailed examination on an optimal way to approach the analysis. Our focus isn't on the spreadsheeting but rather (a) how to think through critical risks, opportunities, and assumptions, (b) forecasting possible scenarios, and (c) examining how it might be best presented to a senior audience.

The Q&A sessions are open-ended. Topics we've covered in past include:

- how these concepts can help you diligence a company you are thinking about joining

- differences b/w how these concepts might apply in startup vs scale-up vs large-enterprise contexts, as well as innovation vs product-improvement contexts

- real examples of how making a financial case enabled an important project to get approved

- a challenge a member of the cohort is tackling at work