The Curious Sofa Executive Summary

472 Words1 Page

Debbie Dusenberry, owner and founder of The Curious Sofa, found her business failing after years of national acclaim, growth and success (Katz & Green II, 2013, p. 409). Despite her apparent aptitude at entrepreneurship, Ms. Dusenberry made two monumental mistakes: she never created a business plan and never monitored and/or analyzed the financial health of her business. She allowed the success of her organization to propel its growth, in size and costs, yet she did not manage her cash flow in a way to continue operating profitably.

There is a vast difference between profits and cash flow. Profits are the revenue an organization has earned after accounting for expenses (p. 414). Revenue is nothing more than the monetary value placed on those goods and services sold to consumers and the price those consumers are going pay- it does not necessarily coincide with a cash transaction (Way, n.d.). Alternatively, cash flow is the actual movement of cash in and out of the business. Cash is money that is …show more content…

Dusenberry to perform a break-even analysis (p. 431) to determine how much revenue her business must earn to equally offset its expenses, I do not believe this analysis is going to be the key to turning her organization around. As mentioned, profits will not pay a business’s obligations. Just because an organization has determined the amount of revenue they must earn to reach the break-even point, does not mean that have affected their organization’s cash flow. As our text states, “Approximately 55 percent of small businesses that fail do so because of cash flow problems with an immediate impact, not because of lack of profitability” (p. 453). If The Curious Sofa has reached the point where it is unable to pay its obligations, a break-even analysis is not going to help; the organization must find ways to increase the amount of cash coming into the business. They must find a way to decrease the amount of time in their operating cycle (p.

Open Document