The market is difficult and many investors put new deals on hold while taking care of their existing portfolio companies.
Aside from preparing for strong growth and low burn, what other suggestions do you have for young startups?
Ask HN: How to raise a seed round in a down market?
1–10 of 138 posts
Re: Ask HN: How to raise a seed round in a down market?
#2What I have been reading these days a lot, raising money is highly dependent on the type of product you are building.
I think its good to approach some angels and raise pre-seed.
Re: Ask HN: How to raise a seed round in a down market?
#3Seed rounds are largely unaffected atm. You should pitch the team and vision, with a heavy focus on your path to $1M ARR.
Re: Ask HN: How to raise a seed round in a down market?
#4Seed rounds are largely unaffected atm. You should pitch the team and vision, with a heavy focus on your path to $1M ARR.
yeah, and make sure you know a lot of people and go to parties all the time, because a good team and vision is not going to be enough.
Re: Ask HN: How to raise a seed round in a down market?
#5Seed rounds are largely unaffected atm. You should pitch the team and vision, with a heavy focus on your path to $1M ARR.
yeah, and make sure you know a lot of people and go to parties all the time, because a good team and vision is not going to be enough.
I understand why you are saying this, because I’m not from SV and have experienced this resentment
But if there was ever a time that parties and vanity metrics didn’t matter - this is it.
Re: Ask HN: How to raise a seed round in a down market?
#6Earlier quoted context omitted.
yeah, and make sure you know a lot of people and go to parties all the time, because a good team and vision is not going to be enough.
I understand why you are saying this, because I’m not from SV and have experienced this resentment But if there was ever a time that parties and vanity metrics didn’t matter - this is it.
I've heard that many times before
Re: Ask HN: How to raise a seed round in a down market?
#7Be or have a co-founder with:
- an affiliation with an ivy league school
- a prior notable technology or business contribution, such as authoring a protocol (or more recently an open source project)
- some unusual circumstance such as family relationships that causes VC partners to care more about them than a random person
- be obviously independently wealthy already
- have been a founder or high level employee involved in a very successful vc-backed startup exit
One or a combination of these will ease getting an initial investor and closing a seed round.
Re: Ask HN: How to raise a seed round in a down market?
#8Earlier quoted context omitted.
yeah, and make sure you know a lot of people and go to parties all the time, because a good team and vision is not going to be enough.
I understand why you are saying this, because I’m not from SV and have experienced this resentment But if there was ever a time that parties and vanity metrics didn’t matter - this is it.
Cold emails probably work too, but meeting people irl is still a great way to build your network.
Re: Ask HN: How to raise a seed round in a down market?
#9Unless your team is made up of serial entrepreneurs with one or more successful exits, then the only thing that really matters is customer metrics: usage, revenue, and rate of growth.
Re: Ask HN: How to raise a seed round in a down market?
#10This is a great time to weed out bullshit investors. Like BS jobs, some don't need to exist and this downturn is a great filter for them. The ones who are still investing as normal are the ones you should still raise from even when markets are different.