Early Founders Lost on Pre-Seed Fundraising

“From a founder's side I'd keep the teaser to the problem, why now, a bit of traction and the ask. Save the detailed financials and roadmap for the call, since the goal is just earning the meeting. [re: Did folks here send teaser decks to VCs as they started fundraising? What did you share in the teaser? I will not promote]”

“Where do people actually find capital partners? If you have the skills and a serious plan but limited capital, where do you find people who are genuinely open to backing an opportunity? I'm interested in all legitimate routes: private investors, capital partners, capital programs, profit-sharing partnerships, or people looking to deploy funds with capable operators. Not looking for loans, courses, or motivational advice. I'd like to hear from people who've actually made these connect”

“Have you considered talking to investors? You’ve got something concrete to show them [re: Should i PAUSE or should i continue? (i will not promote)]”

“Congrats! You've built something someone pays for! I raised ~10M and failed this challenge. To answer your question, /u/plxs05092026 is correct but incomplete. I don't know your goals (financial, work life balance, etc) but there is certainly more money (and competition) in specialization down the exam / interview / onboarding path. If I were in your shoes (and given my relative failure I'd suggest a massive pile of salt) I'd go for a mix of A & B from a technical perspective”

“Building an investor list as a first-time founder mostly meant guessing. I’d open a fund’s site, try to tell if they invest at my stage, then dig through LinkedIn to figure out who to email. So my cofounder and I built this into investorsGo. You sign up, and your dashboard shows the funds that match your startup. Click one and you get: why it fits (their stated focus against what you’re building) their thesis, portfolio and team the partner who covers your space an intro email to that partner, d”

“Building an investor list as a first-time founder mostly meant guessing. I’d open a fund’s site, try to tell if they invest at my stage, then dig through LinkedIn to figure out who to email. So my cofounder and I built this into investorsGo. You sign up, and your dashboard shows the funds that match your startup. Click one and you get: why it fits (their stated focus against what you’re building) their thesis, portfolio and team the partner who covers your space an intro email to that partner, d”

“How to get started? [re: “Zero down” is real. “Zero capital” is a scam. Stop letting gurus sell you the difference.]”

“Trying to cut through the noise here,Everyfintech is promising the world and I genuinely can’t tell what’s actually good vs whatjust has a nice landing page. We’re a seedstage startup and, Iwant something that doesn’t waste runway on fees or require three separate tools to manage money. Whatare people actually using and wouldrecommend? submitted by /u/Electronic_beer [link] [comments]”

“An investor does not fund the idea at the pitch stage, they fund the evidence behind it. Fifty thousand at this stage means giving up real equity for a conversation. If the numbers do not already exist, the honest source of that money is a customer, not a term sheet. Run the revenue experiment first. That is the thing that makes the next round real. [re: Think I could find an investor to give me 50k for this?]”

“I found a pitch competition the night applications closed: 150 companies, 3 days to prepare, 60 seconds to pitch. Ahh yes, all these investors which have too much money and do not care fore more than 60 seconds for 35k. I call BS. [re: I Wrote a 60-Second Business Pitch and won $35,000 for it.]”

“What series funding? Usually Seed/Preeseed is 0.5-x%, A 0.x%, B 0.0x%, priced in B or C+ either 0.00x% or percentage not specified/ISOS/PPUs/etc for new grad offers. [re: Am I Being Scammed? (Startup Edition)]”

“Been working on our deck for almost 2 months and Im finally at the point where I have to start talking to investors. Problem is I dont really know any. No warm network, didnt go to a big name school, never worked at a startup that raised. Every single piece of advice says get warm intros but nobody explains how you get them when you know zero investors lol So for people who closed a pre seed in the last year or so, how did you get the first handful of meetings? Cold email, accelerators, angels o”

“Network and build relationships with founders who have got funded. Then ask them for intros to their investors. The investors value most the referrals coming from founders they are backing. [re: How do a startup raise pre-seed funding? What are the strategies to raising pre-seed funding? [I will not promote]]”

“Not a founder, so I'll leave the war stories to others. From the investor side, the second bite depends on three things you can check before signing. Same security as the fund. If the sponsor holds preferred or a shareholder loan accruing at 10% and you hold common, your 20% can be worth much less than 20% at exit. Ask for the waterfall at three exit values, in writing. Debt. Rollover is equity in a now-leveraged company. Sell at 100, roll 20 into a deal with 60 of debt, and a flat exit stil”

“How do you decide what’s worth paying for when you’re bootstrapping? I see a lot of founders looking for help with growing their business, but when it comes to paying for that help, the budget isn’t always there. I get it. Money is tight, and you have to be intentional about where it goes. But you also can’t afford to stay stuck forever. What are you actually spending money on right now? And if your business isn’t growing the way you want, what would make you willing to invest in getting help? I”

“Valar Atomics, a nuclear startup, is suing one of its own investors, Day One Ventures, over its ~$1B Series B. Day One put in $1M at seed and $15M at the A. They own under 5%, but they have pro-rata, so they can buy into each new round to keep their stake. The new lead wanted the whole round, so major investors got asked to waive. Everyone did except Day One. Their contract had a spring-back: if anyone who waived got an allocation anyway, everyone's rights came back. One big insider was goin”

“Thanks for the heads up especially on the credits lifespan [re: Cloudflare is giving bootstrapped startups 10k in free credits, no funding needed]”

“if you're going to add them at the first priced round anyway just do it now, keeping them off until then only adds weird optics when investors ask why the other founder isn't on the board [re: [I will not promote] Initial Sole Director (co-founder can join later) widely accepted ?]”

“You'd fund the whole project with what exactly? That's the only concrete claim in the post and it has no number behind it. [re: Looking for TECHNICAL cofounder (I will not promote)]”

“I think it's a leverage game. A VC's / angel's goal is to get on the ground floor of the potentially highest-value startups that have a 0.01% chance of being gigantic. If they require a startup to go through this diligence, then the startup might just choose to work with another investor that won't. The startup will argue that they don't want to share metrics to an investor if they aren't guaranteed the investor will invest. The only way to implement this industry-wide is”

“I've been thinking about this lately...when a founder pitches VCs or angels, they throw out metrics like ARR, churn, retention, active users, revenue, etc. Everyone knows founders can stretch the truth, define ARR however they want or flat-out lie. And then once a term sheet actually gets signed, everyone spends weeks dumping CSVs, PDF bank statements and payment gateway exports into a data room so analysts can verify it all from scratch. Why hasn't a third-party "verification layer”

“Hey all! PSA\ this is NOT soliciting or designed for lead gen, and is not meant to be market research / funneling. THIS IS PURLEY FOR MY OWN INTEREST* I'm looking to interview founders on how they gained their first users. I'd hope for any publicity from said interviews will spur both attention for your site and useful tips for me If interested, please comment your SaaS and how much MRR you currently produce. I'd love to see it! Thank you! submitted by /u/EdwardKost7 [lin”

“We went through this exact nightmare during pre-seed. Set a hard cut-off date, upload all raw bank CSVs into software and mark every mystery personal swipe as founder debt until you find the receipt. [re: Investor asked for clean books how messy were yours?]”

“This is the part most people skip, they get a few upvotes and think the market's begging for it The 2-3 weeks thing is interesting though, most founders I know want an answer in 48 hours then get annoyed when the real customer interviews contradict their assumptions [re: The Right Way to validate an idea.]”

“Multiple founders got offers just from practising, before the event even happened? What were the offers, actual terms or a 'let's stay in touch'? Tip 1 rests entirely on that and it's the one thing you give no numbers on. [re: Tips for pitch competitions and meeting investors (I will not promote)]”

“I was invited to an incubator to prepare founders for a live pitch competition later this month. The winner will receive a cheque (not huge) but also meet more investors by being invited to other networking opportunities. The competition is like a filtering process. After two weeks, I’d like to summarize what I observed and share some of the most common feedback I gave and heard. We had other founders and investors attend the practice sessions. Tip 1: show up to everything Not gonna lie. I’m kin”

“Raising your first round can feel like a rollercoaster. Focus on telling your story and showcasing your passion for the problem you’re solving. Investors want to see that fire and belief behind your vision, so don’t hold back on sharing why you’re the right person for the job. [re: Indian founder looking for advice on raising my first round]”

“Thank you. Your advice is gold, I didn't even think about grants. I am nowhere near being able to buy in terms of knowledge and capital - specially for a very successful business. I am working to be ready in a pair of years. I would love to connect with your family member and learn from them if they don't mind. I am DMing you. [re: Leaving tech in ~2 years to own an HVAC business]”

“Why are you trying to do all that from the jump? Crazy. You can start this small, maybe self-funded, and build up to all that, if the demand is even there - which is what you should prove first. [re: Me and a friend are trying to start a gym in our town that has a been having a population boom. Advice would be nice over the details we have went through already.]”

“The funnel chain is the most useful part of this, and writing it out is the step most technical founders skip. One thing I would add: every clause in that chain is also a search. A non-US investor on one broker holding one kind of ETF types that exact problem into Google or a broker subreddit when it bites. The cheapest distribution at your stage is answering the existing threads where that person already landed, instead of writing for "investors" in general. I also agree with the comm”

“I was part of Antler’s first ever batch, funded. They will make their connections, but cut you out completely the second they feel things aren’t making sense. We got great support after pressed investment. Pitched for a seed round. We didn’t get enough capital to keep going. I saw that we were bleeding money. I had a big falling out with my cofounders of one or two small mistakes. I was “fired” on Thursday and would have left on Friday myself. It turned really ugly to say the least. Me and my co”

“I've been developing and testing the concept for about a year now. We are currently seeking angel investment, or bootstrapping. The market is very set in its ways... it's going to take a groundswell to change the way things work. [re: Job Hunting? Beta testers wanted for shareable queryable version of your career.]”

“I’ve been stuck at mid 6 figures. Would love to bend your ear about getting to 7 figures tho! Haha. [re: Do you game as an entrepreneur?]”

“Nice! That makes sense, thanks. Is any of it spent before the venture gets approved? Like research to decide whether it's worth the $1M in the first place, or does that come out of someone's regular budget? [re: PMs with a tool budget: how much, and what did you last spend it on?]”

“what the profit? [re: New Record - $1,478 in ONE DAY! (Should I fundraise?)]”

“then flip it around, best targets are founders who just raised or just launched, they have budget and a deadline. find them in launch threads and demo days, not job boards. what is your domain? [re: do startups founders use web dev / software agencies for building their product, especially if the app or software is not what the startup do? for example does a startup of AI agent use an agency for building their mobile app? (i will not promote)]”

“Raising money as a founder without a warm network mostly looked like this for me: - Investor mandates aren't public, and they change. Working out who's a fit is guesswork. - You send a lot of messages, get few replies and have even fewer real conversations. - Everything lives in spreadsheets and screenshots, so leads get lost. Investors have the opposite problem: lots of inbound, and no fast way to tell who is serious. So I built Verified Connections. It works like this: Both sides verif”

“Friends and family funds raised ? Or outside source [re: First-time founder, already started to raise. How much of this is paperwork and how much is actually fundraising? (I will not promote)]”

“raising capital is harder than u think lol [re: How badly does a failed startup hurt your career as a software engineer? I will not promote]”

“I wonder if there is a software that can help list out the items you need before going to investors. Like a diligence list. [re: First-time founder, already started to raise. How much of this is paperwork and how much is actually fundraising? (I will not promote)]”

“Figured a bit of clarity might help some new founders. If you have deep connections with buyers in your space, or you’ve meaningfully solved this problem before, a compelling story can bring investors’ revenue expectations close to zero. At the preseed or seed stage, you don’t necessarily need a full year of revenue behind you. You can annualize your current monthly recurring revenue by multiplying it by 12 to show ARR (if you do this call it run-rate). Investors will typically want to see the l”

“I am not a lawyer, but a few hours with a securities lawyer before taking more money costs far less than fixing missed filings later. For a 506(b) raise the usual list is a clean cap table, a Form D filed within 15 days of the first sale, state notice filings and investor questionnaires. Most of the work is documents, pitching is the smaller share. The 83(b) window is 30 days and generally cannot be extended, so a lawyer can tell you what options are left.”

“Done this a few times now and it still surprises me how much of it is admin! Rough split from my experience: the paperwork is maybe 20% of the hours and 80% of the anxiety. The actual fundraising is the other 80% of the hours and it's mostly just meetings, follow-ups and waiting. Things I wish someone had told me the first time: ...Get the boring stuff clean before your first call, not after someone says yes. Cap table, incorporation docs, any IP assignment from early contributors. Nothing k”

“You blew the 83(b) and the California filings before anyone said yes, and the takeaway is a shopping list of six compliance vendors. Not sure any of them retroactively file anything.”

“pre seed round talks going on investor asked for 18 months of books for DD reality half in excel, half in my co founder head some expenses on personal cards we are moving to proper software now, shortlisted giddh and zoho. but how did you guys fix the past data? redo everything or just clean from here on submitted by /u/EntertainmentJust373 [link] [comments]”

“curious how "readiness" actually gets scored, cause every investor i've seen has a different bar for that depending on mood and whether they had coffee yet lol. matching on stage/sector/ticket is the easy part, the hard part is founders overestimating their own readiness and ignoring the feedback anyway.”

“In the grand scheme of things Carta isn’t expensive enough that it’s worth fighting it. Saving $20k isn’t going to be the thing that makes your funded startup successful, and it’s helpful to just not have to think about this at all so you can focus on building and selling the product that will determine your success.”

“Verified Connections could make each investor’s stage, sector and ticket range more useful by showing when those details were last confirmed. Identity verification establishes who someone is; your matching also depends on whether their investment criteria are current. By the way, I make ThreadFox, which finds the Reddit communities whose rules allow a post about a platform like Verified Connections, with each rule quoted; the plan for one product is free. Do you also check whether an investor is”

“When we were raising, most of our time went to chasing contacts that led nowhere. There were fake "angels," dead inboxes and investors who didn't back our stage or sector at all. So we built Verified Connections. Every founder and every investor confirms their identity before they can connect. Then we match them on what actually matters: stage, sector, ticket size and readiness. Introductions are curated, not mass blasts. If you're about to raise, there's a free Fundraising”

“I run a bootstrapped tool for SEOs and webmasters: API + web app, pay-as-you-go credits. No VC, just cash flow. Most startup books assume you're raising money. I need practical stuff on distribution, retention and pricing for a lean product. What actually helped so far: The Mom Test (Rob Fitzpatrick): stopped pitching features, started asking about problems people already pay to solve. The SaaS Playbook (Rob Walling): fewer vanity features, more focus on distribution and predictable cash flo”

“Read his pitch deck a couple of times more and as an exercise write down each slide on a piece of paper or post-its. Try to ask yourself "why would an investor want to see this?", like what does that slide represent existing in the startup. Understand each slide, and why they are essential. Then ask yourself what's so outdated about investors wanting "financial projections and key metrics", or "timeline and use of funds", or the backgrounds and experiences of th”

“Raising pre-seed at $500k ARR is still quite a bit above market I think, based on my conversations fundraising (in NYC) and general benchmarks that are available publicly. Anecdotal though, as most of these things are.”

“solid advice. out of the tools you listed, pulley filed for bankruptcy and transferred clients to carta for cap table . i’d add that if you are looking to raise institutional, outside of family and friends, start assembling your data room. for first time founders, Pageform Agent can help make the one you need from your files directly and flag what’s missing. Also way more affordable than any other secure document sharing tools and you get same visibility. lastly, take it step by step. we raised”

“a free DCF valuation tool to have a rough estimate of your startup valuation https://pitchcombinator.com/tools/dcf”

“"You’ll probably struggle through the first few meetings, so use the less important conversations to get reps. Their questions will show you what data you need and where your story needs work." This is true in fundraising and true in customer sales. You need those reps before you get good. You don't know what you don't know until you do it a few times.”

“I raised $3m last year and am in the trenches of our next raise, meeting with investors daily. Worrying about things like what paperwork investors will ask for is a waste of time ATM. I’d only focus on getting in front of VCs if that’s the goal. The two slides investors spend the most time on in my deck are traction and repeatable sales motion. I use papermark to track investor analytics bc you don’t actually present your deck in meetings or show demos. Your story matters most. Why you? Why are”

Lmao a lot of real investors require more than 2 meetings

“Not much if you do SAFE and always use tools like Carta. Do not waste time trying to do it yourself. No more than 2 meetings to close. If do then they are not right investors. When you do price rounds then its lots of work thats why stay with SAFE long as you can”

“Launched the first week of September 2026 for NFL season, I've already started raising a small round from people I know. Friends and family on a 506(b) private offering. What I'm realizing is that I have no idea what the admin side of all of this looks like. I already messed up my 83(b) at incorporation and issuing my shares, and a few state-based blue-sky filing deadlines were missed for California. Everything I've read is about how to pitch. Nothing really covers what you're su”