Personally, I doubt it barring exceptional circumstance: previous achievement in another field, metrics that can't be ignored (tough to get via bootstrapping, though)...

I have heard from some seed stage investors that they will do priced seed rounds -- even some that claim to prefer it -- so there may be technical exceptions that really reinforce your point.

To be fair, the workshop's website also asks about previous fundraising. I've found this always comes up during fundraising discussions, too. Partially because the company's finances matter, but also because investors want social proof. I don't think this is as negative as it seems: early stage startups are black boxes, and any signal is helpful, I suppose -- and there's some sense that previous ability to 'sell' is indicative of future success. (I try to empathize with the investors on this one; they see a lot of pitches.)

My apologies if I misunderstood why were you asking that question. I'm not done the entire article but I didn't get the impression this was assuming that companies were going directly to a series A like Justin did with this company:

> The more nuanced answer is when you have achieved compelling enough intermediate milestones that convince VCs that cash is your constraint to scaling your business. In other words, you have something that works, and all it takes is pouring money on it to grow it much, much bigger.