The Entrepreneurial Finance Technical Note Series is a practitioner-oriented reference covering the full arc of early-stage company finance — from the financing gap that confronts pre-revenue founders through to exit planning and succession.
The series is written for senior undergraduate and MBA students who need to evaluate real investment opportunities, not just study them in the abstract. Each note is built around the analytical frameworks that angel investors, venture capitalists, and founders actually use: revenue forecasting and unit economics, early-stage valuation methods, term sheet mechanics, cap table construction, due diligence methodology, credit analysis, and the Canadian regulatory and tax landscape governing private capital.
Twenty notes cover the full capital stack — angel and venture equity, convertible instruments, bank lending, mezzanine financing, commercial real estate debt — along with the people-side disciplines of founder assessment, deal structuring, financial distress, and entrepreneur transition planning. Two companion notes address the specialized financing structures of SaaS and biotech companies.
Originally developed for use in BU403/613 Entrepreneurial Finance at Wilfrid Laurier University and refined over more than a decade of classroom use, the series is designed to serve any course that prepares students to participate in early-stage deal evaluation.
