Financial Planning Techniques in Start-up Project: A Case Study of La Mardino's Pizzeria in Finland
Dudhrejiaya, Sejuben; Gajjar, Jainika (2025)
2025
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Julkaisun pysyvä osoite on
https://urn.fi/URN:NBN:fi:amk-2025102426408
https://urn.fi/URN:NBN:fi:amk-2025102426408
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This thesis concerns financial planning tools with respect to achieving success and continuity in start-ups, especially in Helsinki, Finland, where La Mardino's Pizzeria has been selected for study as a food outlet-startup. While Finland has an ecosystem that supports entrepreneurs, many start-ups still fail due to poor financial management. A qualitative case study method was employed to assess how La Mardino's utilized: budgeting, cash flow forecasting, and cost allocation as financial planning tools the start-up needed for strategic business decision-making in an example on pricing, staffing, expansions, and allocation of resources. Data were collected through semi-structured interviews with managers, and some thematic analysis was performed to find trends in the data concerning financial decisionmaking.
The findings have indicated that La Mardino's was largely operating on very basic manual tools, entrepreneurial intuition allowing short-term flexibility but sadly less long-term forecasting and scaling. Planning finances helped make those operational decisions while steering the business to resilience against market shocks and thriving even with uncertainties caused by seasonality, regulations, and labor costs. Thus far, some challenges have remained, especially low financial literacy, tardiness in adapting digital tools for planning, ill-timed or erratic cash flows, and limited access to funding.
The study states that flexible financial strategies are essential even for nascent firms; thus, financial planning should not be treated as a one-time undertaking, but as a process that is always active. Besides contributing to academic discourse on start-up finance, insights from it would also go a long way in informing entrepreneurs, policymakers, and investors on instituting financially sustainable business models in a crowded, competitive environment in the wine industry.
The findings have indicated that La Mardino's was largely operating on very basic manual tools, entrepreneurial intuition allowing short-term flexibility but sadly less long-term forecasting and scaling. Planning finances helped make those operational decisions while steering the business to resilience against market shocks and thriving even with uncertainties caused by seasonality, regulations, and labor costs. Thus far, some challenges have remained, especially low financial literacy, tardiness in adapting digital tools for planning, ill-timed or erratic cash flows, and limited access to funding.
The study states that flexible financial strategies are essential even for nascent firms; thus, financial planning should not be treated as a one-time undertaking, but as a process that is always active. Besides contributing to academic discourse on start-up finance, insights from it would also go a long way in informing entrepreneurs, policymakers, and investors on instituting financially sustainable business models in a crowded, competitive environment in the wine industry.