🏦 The Cash Flow Playbook That Can Save Your 2025

Hey everyone,

Welcome back for another bite to chew on.

Times are tough. Money is tight. That’s why we’re putting together a 2-part finance series to help you manage. Today is part 1…

👉 Cash flow is killing DTC brands right now.

Margin pressure. Slower sales cycles. Some of the highest interest rates we’ve seen in 10 years. And, of course, tariffs.

At Obvi, we’ve lived through cash nightmares. In our early days, we fell into what we now call the financing trap — a cash flow death spiral that nearly killed the company.

We survived.

And over time, we’ve built a system that doesn’t just protect cash flow, it turns it into a competitive weapon.

Here’s exactly how we do it (and how you can too).👇🏽

On the Menu

• The Financing Trap (And How to Escape It) 🚨 

• Building a Forecast That Actually Works (with a free template you can use!) 📊

• Scenario Planning: How We Bulletproof Cash Flow 🔮

• The Cash Flow Toolkit Every DTC Brand Needs 🛠️

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🚨 The Financing Trap: How We Almost Killed Obvi (and Escaped)

When we started scaling aggressively, cash was constantly tight.

Every new revenue milestone meant we needed more inventory and more ad spend to maintain momentum.

So we did what seemed smart: we financed everything over $5K.

Inventory. Ad spend. Everything.

At first, it felt brilliant…

• Bigger orders = better pricing. 

• More ad spend = faster growth.

But…we soon got locked into this cycle 

Month 1 → Finance all big expenses
Month 2 → Pay back Month 1 financing + finance new expenses
Month 3 → Repeat (and dig deeper)

We were working to pay financiers, not to grow.😬

As interest costs compounded, our monthly financing payments eventually grew larger than our core business expenses. 

We were caught in a death spiral.

Sound familiar? Today’s tough macro environment makes this trap even more dangerous.

How we escaped:

1. Ruthlessly cut costs. Overhead dropped from $300K to $160K — canceled subscriptions, renegotiated contracts, and reduced headcount.
   

2. Pivoted to profitable growth. Shifted from LTV-based scaling to a ROAS model. Profitable on the first purchase.

We gradually financed smaller percentages of invoices until we returned to paying cash for everything.

Now let’s get into the systems and playbooks we use to keep our head above water these days 👇🏽

📊 Building a Forecast That Actually Works

The whole financing trap could’ve been avoided with better forecasting.

Every DTC brand should use a rolling 13-week cash flow forecast (yes, you can do this in Google Sheets).

At Obvi, we have a cash flow forecast for the next 18 months, but know that the upcoming 13-week period is the most accurate.

(NOTE - In this environment, we actually recommend 26 weeks as the better standard if you’re up to it.) 

We track:

Inflows: 

• Shopify revenue (by product line)

• Amazon revenue

• Wholesale/retail revenue

• Other income

Outflows:

• Inventory purchases (with payment terms)

• Marketing spend (by channel)

• Payroll and benefits

• Shipping/logistics

• Office expenses

• Software subscriptions

• Taxes/professional services

Pro Tip: Color-code outflows! 

• 🟢 Flexible (delayable)

• 🟡 Negotiable

• 🔴 Fixed

This gives you a visual map of flexibility each month.

But a forecast alone isn’t enough…

⭐️ (Need a cash flow template? Grab ours for Google Sheets here. Once you’re in, click “file” and “make a copy” to save it.)

🔮 Scenario Planning: How We Bulletproof Cash Flow

Your forecast is the map. Scenario planning is the armour.  Here’s how we use it to stay 3 steps ahead…

The 3 Scenarios Framework

For major decisions, we model:

• Best case (110% of expectations)

• Base case (what we expect)

• Worst case (70% of expectations)

Prevents us from being blindsided when plans go sideways.

Monthly Modelling

We toggle key assumptions to see how cash positions change:

• What if tariffs push COGS up 15%?

• What if we delay inventory purchases 30 days?

• What if we shift 20% of ad spend from Meta to TikTok?

Scenario planning lets you act before a cash crunch hits.

The Quarterly Stress Test

Once a quarter, we model extreme disruptions:

• Revenue drops 40%

• Supplier stops delivering for 60 days

• Ad costs double

Remember: stress tests turn surprises into prepared responses.

The Emergency Cash Plan

We maintain a ready-to-go action plan for raising $100K, $250K, or $500K in 30 days or less. 

This Includes:

• SKUs we can discount without harming brand value

• VIP customer offers that can raise revenue quickly

• Marketing channels we could pause (with minimal impact)

• Bills we could defer with the best vendor relationships

Goal: NEVER make panicked decisions when cash gets tight.

🛠 The Cash Flow Toolkit Every DTC Brand Needs

Here is the 3-part tactical framework we use to keep our cash flow healthy and manageable. 

1️⃣ The Rolling Inventory Order

Instead of one big quarterly order, we place smaller monthly orders. 

We also share a 90-day (non-binding) forecast with manufacturers to maintain scale pricing but retain flexibility.

2️⃣ Cash Conversion Cycle (CCC) Analysis

We religiously track our cash conversion cycle:

CCC = Inventory Days + Receivable Days – Payable Days

Our goal is to constantly reduce this number through efficiency improvements, including:

• Faster inventory turnover

• Quicker customer payments

• Extended supplier terms

Our progress over the last 2 years:

🕒 From 120 days ➡️ 45 days = +75 extra days of cash in the business

3️⃣ The Renegotiation Playbook

A structured approach to vendor negotiations:

• Start with non-critical vendors

• Use market benchmarks

• Offer something in return (longer contract, faster payment)

Result: Most vendors extended terms from net 30 to net 60/90. Some added small premiums (2-3%), which is still cheaper than financing.

💡 Pro Tip: Always negotiate via call, never email

🧰 Operator Toolbox - Finance Pack

🚨Reminder: We have $250,000 in free AppLovin Credits! We’re handing out more and more of these credits every day. Fill out this quick form to get yours before they’re gone →

⭐️ Agency & Vendor Recommendations! We’re introducing brands to our top vendors and partners, including the team that helped us execute our advertorial LP. Just fill out the linked form and let us know what you’re looking for. Quick connect →

🔹 Mercury - Their suite of finance tools will save you hours per week. Plus, their 1.5% cashback credit card is one of our favorites on the market. Get $500 in rewards for a limited time (see terms) →

🔹 Chargeflow - We lost 5 figures monthly from chargebacks before signing up with Chargeflow. Now it’s basically zero. Check them out to cure your chargeback headaches →

🔹 Obvi’s Google Sheets Cash Flow Template - Need help forecasting cash flow? Save this free template and apply it to your biz →

Some of these are referral partners. We only share what we actually use or would recommend to a friend.