You just raised your seed round. What should be your main priority for the next 3 months?

Slightly different tack but here's the first thing to do! https://racket.com/yehoshzl/rrB8E

Focus on testing the MVP and searching for a PMF. Even better, (pre)-sell it. Get it in front of as many potential customers as you can. They'll probably provide you with more useful information than your dream team members. Walking around fairs and pre-selling our prototype helped us get to the break-even point only 2 weeks after we had gotten the first pieces out of production (hardware product).

To create a sustainable competitive edge in terms of the men and/or my product which has to be good enough for the organization. If not sustainable then it will be copied. I want to also create a great work environment first. I have always believed that its not how much you pay but how much you pay respect. They would not be put on pedestal but I would be included in 'they'. We would be creating an exit strategy for the investors too. I am not worried about investment but I am excited about selling to the market of 7 billion people and see some of them throwing it back to us. I want to create the best product but also want to create the best practice within people. People, both employees and customers should feel that we are the perfect soulmate which they thought will never find. Now all this together seems impossible but it's not it's just that we have to give time, step by step.. However the only step by step phase in my life is when tomorrow morning I will be homeless..

Accept that it takes time to find the right people, which means investing earlier in the process of finding talent. Write up great job descriptions, get them posted, but start searching for people immediately, don't sit back and wait. Keep the momentum going, if you know you're going to hire another role in 6 months, don't wait 6 months to start the process.

Prepping candidates for hire start years before. People you hired on contract base and were happy with before, interns, mentees, previous co-workers, new grads in your school, people you interacted on GitHub, network of existing employees ... I would start way before raising anything; especially most of the effort is giving back to the community and keeping in touch anyways. It’s rather easy hiring in your own domain e.g. SWE hiring swe. I find it harder to hire in domains I rarely interacted before and still regret not keeping my network wider.

Experiment on distribution channels that will give your product exponential growth and double down it.

As Ben Horowitz said focus on the 3 P's (in that order): 1/ People 2/ Product 3/ Profit (not real profit but we needed a P - I guess it's revenues first)

Setup time to talk to your users and continuously iterate to reach Series A level product maturity.

1. I think nobody will give you the money without you explaining what you will do with them. So you have to have a plan long before that pile of cash. 2. I assume it's smart money, so there are some mentors/advisors as well. Advisors bring connections, connections can help with hiring. That said, I would definitely hire a person as a contractor for a month or two first so that I can be pretty sure of them when switching to a full time.

Continue with MVPs and stay focus on ARR for series A. You only have 12-18 months to get tasks done. Everything that makes progress only counts. The rest is un-important. Take care!