Logan Burchett’s journey into entrepreneurship started not with a big idea, but with a front-row seat to the financial realities of building a business. As a financial analyst at Venture First, he worked hand-in-hand with early-stage founders—modeling growth, troubleshooting burn rates, and witnessing firsthand how fragile startup success can be without financial clarity. That experience became the foundation for Forecastr, the platform he co-founded to help founders plan smarter, manage cash flow, and scale confidently.
Now, as COO of Forecastr, Burchett brings that experience to startups across the country. In this conversation, he goes behind the scenes of what it means to be a financially-minded founder. Burchett shares lessons from working with hundreds of companies, breaking down the biggest blind spots in startup finance, and explaining how early systems can make or break a company’s ability to grow.
What were you doing before your work at Forecastr?
LB: I started my career at Venture First, a startup founded by John Shoemate. At the time I joined, they were bootstrapped and focused mostly on valuation services. They were just beginning to branch into CFO services, and that’s when I came on board as a financial analyst.
That role was where I really learned the most about entrepreneurship—working directly with founders, understanding their struggles, and seeing firsthand what it takes to keep a company moving forward. It was also where I built my foundation in financial modeling.
Those experiences were the catalyst for starting Forecastr. I kept running into the same problems repeatedly, and dealing with them every day made me realize there was a bigger opportunity to solve them at scale.
What is the biggest financial blind spot you see founders struggle with?
LB: The biggest financial blind spot I see founders struggle with is the lack of process around managing cash flow. Poor cash flow management is the number one killer of companies. It doesn’t matter if you’re a startup, a pizza shop, or even a large established business—the failure to properly manage cash is the most likely thing that will take you out.
Now, at Forecastr, we sell more advanced forms of financial planning and analysis than this, but the truth is, most founders don’t even have a basic process in place. Just sitting down once a month, looking at cash, analyzing it, and figuring out when they’re going to run out would make a huge difference.
If more founders simply did that at the most basic level, the success rate of startups would go up tremendously.
In your experience, what’s the difference between companies that scale effectively and those that stall out?
LB: In my experience, the difference between companies that actually scale and the ones that stall usually comes down to the resilience of the founders. They’re the ones who drag the business from zero to one. And when I say zero to one, I’m talking loosely about getting to that first million in revenue — enough traction to prove there’s a real company here.
But here’s where a lot of founders get stuck: they can’t let go. They want to be in every single decision, every detail of the day-to-day, and they hold on way too tight. The truth is, if you don’t learn to delegate, build a management layer, and actually trust those managers, you’ll cap your growth. The companies that scale are the ones where the founders step back, hire people who are smarter than they are in certain areas, and empower those people to take the business to the next level. The ones that don’t? They stay too involved for too long, and that’s what keeps them small.
Can you share an example of how financial forecasting changed the trajectory for a client?
LB: At this point, we’ve had a lot of founders successfully raise money, and in no small part, it’s because of Forecastr. The ability to communicate vision through numbers is a huge selling point for VCs, and we’ve had more than a dozen founders tell us straight up, “We wouldn’t have closed this round without you.” That means a lot.
But honestly, the real impact we have is a little quieter. What we really do is tell founders when to fundraise. Because we can see with a high degree of certainty when they’re going to run out of cash, we can give them enough of a heads-up to actually run a successful process.
Before Forecastr, I can’t count how many times I had conversations with founders who thought they were fine — and then realized they had two or three months of runway left. They just didn’t know. And once you’re in that spot, it’s almost too late. So yeah, we help founders raise money, but the real win is making sure they start the process early enough to actually close.
How does your experience with hundreds of companies through Forecastr shape your advice for today’s founders?
LB: I’d say a couple of things. First, one of the biggest mistakes I see novice founders make is obsessing over their idea. There’s a saying I really buy into: ideas are meaningless, execution is everything. Now, it’s not 100% true — a great idea will usually beat a bad idea — but the spirit of it is right. What actually matters is execution—sticking with it, staying passionate, rallying a team, and pushing through. That’s what wins.
Second, and this is more practical for today: don’t assume your company is going to be a unicorn just because you slapped AI into your product. At the same time, don’t ignore AI either. In this environment, it’s too powerful a tool not to leverage. Use it to make your company stronger and more efficient, but don’t fool yourself into thinking a thin wrapper around GPT is enough to build a business.
It doesn’t matter if you’re a startup, a pizza shop, or even a large established business—the failure to properly manage cash is the most likely thing that will take you out.
How has Forecastr helped early-stage companies put systems in place that set them up for successful scaling?
LB: At the core of what we do, it really comes down to helping founders plan their cash. You can almost sum up the operational value we bring with one simple question: Can you afford it or not? That’s most of the job. We’re helping founders build their company by giving clear answers like: yes, you can afford to hire this person. No, you can’t afford to hire that person yet. Or, here’s what needs to happen first before you make that hire.
It’s not all that different from working with a personal financial advisor. You might tell your advisor you want to buy a Ferrari, and they’d say, “Cool, but you can’t afford that right now. Here’s the plan you’d need to follow to get there.” We do the same thing, except instead of Ferraris, it’s hiring decisions, growth investments, and scaling the company.
That’s the real foundation we put in place — the guardrails that let founders grow and scale without accidentally running their company off a cliff.
Do you see AI-driven efficiencies changing the types of KPIs or financial metrics that founders should prioritize as they scale?
LB: No, I don’t think AI changes the fundamentals. Unit economics, LTV: CAC, all the core SaaS financial metrics — those are just fundamental to business. That doesn’t go away.
I’ll say what AI has done is it’s made knowledge into a commodity. And it’ll even change the value that businesses bring. For example, it used to be the lawyer who knew the most would get paid the highest. That’s not true anymore. Knowledge is now a commodity. Doesn’t matter if you’re a high school student or a PhD professor — you can pull up ChatGPT and access the same knowledge, explained in a way you can actually understand.
If knowledge is less valuable, what actually matters more now that can step in and replace it? It’s a community. It’s branding. It’s being able to nail distribution and build trust in an ecosystem that is more powerful and more important now than ever. And so that’s the biggest thing that I would say has changed it.
Find out more about Forecastr at forecastr.co. Are you a startup based in or looking to relocate to Kentucky? Keyhorse’s current quarterly investment cycle is open! Apply now.
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