Capex is not the number. Working capital is.
30 September 2026Almost every plan we see is funded to open and not funded to survive. The months between opening and break-even are where businesses die, and nobody budgets them.
Ask someone what a business costs and they will tell you the fit-out. Ask what killed the last one they closed and they will tell you a month — usually somewhere between the eighth and the fourteenth.
Nobody runs out of money on the day they open. They run out on the day the landlord's free period ends and the customers still are not there.
The gap between opening and break-even has a shape, and it is always longer than the plan. Self-storage fills over eighteen months. A clinic inherits a patient list that shrinks before it grows. A padel club is empty on weekday mornings for a year.