> just guesswork and creative storytelling
No.
Not to brag, but once I did a full P&L forecast for 15 years forward for $50M annual revenue and 250+ people by SKU, HC position and all major expense buckets, tied to FX and market/market share changes... in Excel... after 25 revisions by HQ it was still sane. I assume your case is less complicated.
What you need to do is make a simple spreadsheet in Excel, lay down some assumtions and tie them to your revenue with formulas. After you have it done, you can either (1) optimize to find sweet spot, or (2) make several scenarios.
This would help you play safe - all assumptions are transparent. Also, since you seem to have investors, they would have a choice and most probably they would push for a more agressive scenario. But that would be their choice.
I would advise to distance yourself from assumptions. You own execution, NOT assumptions, which you / noone can control.
Excel
2011 2012 2013 2014
Market
Market Growth
% of Market that is your Target Audience
Average FY spend by customer
Cost customer acquisition
etc etc etc
Gross Sales
Discounts/Taxes/etc
Net Sales
COGS
Marketing expenses
etc
etc
Net Income
can be as complicated as you want... try keep it [assumptions] simple, but P&L lines as detailed as possible. Also break forecasted year by month.
Hope this helps