The same mistakes with seed funding sink companies over and over.
Everyone says seed funding is easy. They're lying. I'm breaking down the brutal reality and how to actually win.
What I've Learned From 35 Companies
A few patterns in seed funding come up again and again.
The founders who handle seed funding well understand that timing is everything in this game.
The Counterintuitive Truth
In seed funding, the best practitioners often do less, not more.
The lesson: timing is everything in this game. It sounds simple. It's incredibly hard to execute.
The Reality Nobody Talks About
A lot of the advice on seed funding rests on assumptions that made sense five years ago. The world has moved on.
The first thing to understand is that simplicity beats complexity every time. I've seen this play out across dozens of companies. The pattern is unmistakable.
Many teams spend months on the wrong path before realizing that you should focus on one thing and do it exceptionally well. Once they make the switch, everything changes.
The Numbers Don't Lie
The gap between companies that take seed funding seriously and those that don't is usually clear.
Investing early in seed funding can be the difference between raising your next round and running out of runway.
One of my portfolio companies went from struggling to profitable in under a year after they finally got serious about this. The founder told me later that they wished they'd started sooner.
This connects to broader themes around fundraising timeline, revenue-based financing, Series A, seed funding that I've been thinking about a lot lately.
Wrapping Up
I've shared a lot here, and I know it can feel overwhelming. But you don't need to get seed funding right on day one. You just need to get started and keep improving.
Founders who do well at seed funding tend to share one trait: they're relentlessly practical. They don't chase perfection. They chase progress.
That's the mindset I'd encourage you to adopt. Start where you are. Use what you have. Do what you can. And keep pushing forward.
As always, I'm rooting for you.
Frequently Asked Questions
Q:What's the most common pushback you get on this?
People often push back by citing exceptions or edge cases. And they're usually right that exceptions exist. But building a strategy around exceptions rather than patterns is a losing game for most founders.
Q:How can I apply this thinking to my own situation?
Start by identifying the core principle behind the opinion, not the specific example. Then ask yourself: does this principle apply to my context? If yes, test it in a small, low-risk way before going all in.
Q:How has this view evolved over time?
My thinking on most topics has changed significantly over the years. Early in my career, I held many conventional views that experience proved wrong. I try to update my beliefs when the evidence changes.
Q:What experience informs this perspective?
This perspective comes from over a decade of building companies in Silicon Valley, two successful exits (RemoteTeam to Gusto, MovieLaLa to Gfycat), and investing in 234 startups including Anthropic, OpenAI, and Scale AI. I write about what I've lived.