Entrepreneurs often expect VCs to react adversely to the projections that they include in their executive summary and business plan.  This expectation appears to give management teams a bit of anxiety because their projections at this early stage are based on a lot of assumptions.

The reality is that VCs don't put too much emphasis on your revenue and profit forecasts at this stage of the company.  There's good reason for this - before a company has significant revenue, the projections are essentially an educated guess. VCs know this.

This doesn't mean that early stage VCs don't care about the future growth of the business - they do. However, they don't rely on your projections to evaluate growth. VCs evaluate growth prospects based upon, among other things, the addressable market size and competitive positioning of the business. If the addressable market is huge, the company addresses a real pain point, and the business has an unfair competitive advantage (and high barriers), VCs assume that the company has the potential to grow rapidly.

This also doesn't mean that VCs don't want to see projections - they do. VCs are interested in projections for three reasons. First, they want to see that reasonable assumptions will lead to rapid growth, confirming expectations based on the addressable market, the value proposition and the competitive landscape. Second, they want to see the math behind your projections to both understand your revenue model and assess management's ability to logically think about the drivers of the business. Finally, the projections will give VCs a sense for your strategic plan (how you will build the company), enabling them to better evaluate your management capabilities.

Be prepared to talk about the key drivers and assumptions in your projections candidly. It's OK to admit that some numbers are estimates. Just do your best to have a good rationale for every number that you used, and try to be convincing that your team can make assumptions reality.