Why Most Forecasts Fail After Series B

There is a predictable inflection point in nearly every growth company’s life: the moment when intuition stops working.

For many businesses, that moment arrives shortly after Series B.

Before that stage, founders lived inside the business. They know every deal, every hire, every expense. Decisions are made quickly-often instinctively and usually correctly.

But as the company scales, that intuition begins to lose its edge.

This is where FP&A steps in and why it suddenly matters.

The Complexity Curve Accelerates

After Series B, organizations experience:

• Rapid headcount growth

• Layered management structures

• New revenue streams

• Increased investor scrutiny

What once felt manageable becomes opaque.

Spreadsheets that once worked begin to crack. Assumptions multiply. Communication fragments.

Forecasting becomes harder not because teams are less capable, but because the system itself has fundamentally changed.

Ownership Becomes Diffuse

One of the biggest challenges at this stage is unclear ownership.

• Sales owns bookings

• Marketing owns pipeline

• Operations own capacity

• Finance owns the model

But no one truly owns the forecast end-to-end.

This creates a dangerous dynamic where forecasts become negotiated rather than analytical. Assumptions get softened to avoid conflict. Risks get buried. Leadership loses confidence in numbers.

When this happens, forecasts stop being decision tools and start becoming political artifacts.

Forecasts Stop Driving Action

The most damaging shift is when forecasts stop influencing real decisions.

They become documents created for board meetings, not tools used to guide hiring, investment, or prioritization.

When leadership stops trusting the forecast, decisions revert to instinct, and organizational alignment breaks down.

What High-Performing Teams Do Differently

The companies that navigate this stage successfully do a few things exceptionally well:

• They assign clear ownership of forecasting

• They connect forecasts directly to operational decisions

• They update assumptions continuously, not quarterly

• They treat forecasting as a management system, not a finance exercise

When this shift happens, forecasts regain credibility and become a strategic asset rather than a reporting burden.