Comment by whitej125 | Hacker News Reader

Comment by whitej125 | Hacker News Reader

We just closed a seed a few weeks ago. At least in my experience... "new deals on hold while taking care of their existing portfolio companies" never came up. Honestly I don't even think things like the massive tech re-valuation in public markets even came up (at least not that I recall). The convos continued to focus on team, market and GTM. I will say that from early 2022 to mid 2022 - GTM increased its weight in the discussion.

Wrt/ post-raise - be smart about how you spend and leverage the fact that you probably aren't starting off with, hopefully, high burn. Lot's of companies might be operating under an assumption that there is quick cash around the corner... it's not as "quick" anymore I suspect.

Any suggestions on where new founders should look to find seed investors?

The easiest way is to reach out to entrepreneurs that have raised before and see if they are willing to be an advisor in exchange for equity in your company. If you have something they believe in, they won't hesitate to introduce you to investors they know in exchange for equity in your company.

If you go through the advisor agreement at https://fi.co/fast you can get a sense of how much equity you should give up.

If your next questions is how to find these entrepreneurs, go to LinkedIn, TechCrunch and so forth and cold email people you find and ask them if they would interested in being an advisor.

advisors who provide intros should be invested, not compensated. the social capital gain of making a great intro is enough. compensate advisors for their time spent coaching you

start with angels, look in online communities for your niche, it’s like dating

For me, the best source of seed investor introductions (relevant firm and getting to the partner directly) was from other founders. And the best source of getting introductions to founders was, ironically, from seed investors.

Even having a small network on day 1 is enough to bootstrap but you need to consciously grow. And yes it will feel slow at the beginning.

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