Founders... Your pre-seed round probably won’t take 1–3 months

I get asked this question all the time by founders:

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What’s the difference between a pre-seed, seed and Series A round?

I saw a chart on LinkedIn this week that did a really good job laying it all out.

Raise size. Valuation. Dilution. Types of investors. All the way from pre-seed to IPO.

Really good chart.

But there was one thing I completely disagreed with.

The timeline.

It suggested a typical pre-seed round takes 1–3 months.

Can it?

Absolutely.

Should you plan on it?

Absolutely not.

I’ve looked at roughly 6,000 deals over the last 9 years and been involved in about 70 fundraises. I’m involved in four right now, two pre-seed and two seed.

Here’s what I tell founders:

Plan on 3–6 months.

And potentially 200 investor conversations at about 30 minutes each.

Do the math.

That’s potentially 100 hours just talking to investors.

That doesn’t include finding the right investors, getting introductions, doing outreach, following up, updating your deck, answering diligence questions and everything else that goes into actually getting a round closed.

Oh, and you still have a company to run.

This is why the timeline matters.

If you think you’re going to raise your round in 30–60 days, you may wait too long to start.

You may not give yourself enough runway.

You may build a list of 50 investors when you really need 200.

Then you hit month three without a closed round and start thinking:

What the hell am I doing wrong?

Maybe nothing.

Fundraising takes time.

I’ve seen pre-seed rounds close in 30 days. I’ve seen them close in 60.

But those are the exception, not the rule.

Don’t build your fundraising strategy around the exception.

Give yourself 3–6 months.

Build a big investor pipeline.

Start before you desperately need the money.

Expect to hear “no.” A lot.

And if you get the round done in 60 days?

Fantastic.

Take the win.

Raising capital right now?

If you’re trying to figure out how much to raise, who to target, what your valuation should be, whether your deck is ready or why investors aren’t responding, that’s exactly what my 30-minute Strategy Session is for.

We’ll figure out where you are, what’s getting in the way and what your next move should be.

Until next time—keep building.

Cheers,

Steve Walsh

Hands On Angel

Founder Intro Call

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