The New Pre-Seed: Harder to Get In, More Reward if You Do (with Julia Yu)
This week in the Product Hunt blog, we have a banger from Julia Yu. She's the co-founder of 2024 Golden Kitty winner Unicorns Club, which matches VCs with early-stage startups. She's also founded three VC-backed companies herself.
According to Julia, early-stage founders need to change their mental model about pre-seed funding ASAP. As she puts it:
Once upon a time (in fact, as recently as two years ago), early-stage startups needed three things to get into investor conversations: a strong narrative, a solid team, and a prototype. Now, in most software categories, that s no longer enough.
The advent of AI has shifted investors attention to actual metrics. Yes, even at the pre-seed level, investors don t care so much about promise as they do about realized potential. They want monthly recurring revenue (MRR) and growth rate.
What “AI mode” are you in when you build?
Hey everyone
I ve been continuing to explore the question:
How do we use AI without outsourcing our thinking?
Describe your product in 5 words.
Which jobs do you think will disappear and which will be created? (in the online space)
I keep hearing and reading about how programmers are at risk; basically, everything that can be replaced by AI is at risk.
Yesterday, Lenny Rachitsky shared a post that PM openings are at the highest levels since 2022.
At the same time, I read how big giants (Meta, Amazon, etc.) are laying off engineers because of AI, and then I read about how they had to hire back again because something managed by AI went wrong.
I failed my first Product Hunt launch. Here's what I learned from this experience.
To what extent can you include team work in your personal portfolio?
Back when I worked in advertising agencies as an idea maker and copywriter (creative), I cared a lot about my CV and portfolio (honestly, I wanted to include almost every project I worked on, as many things as possible).
But whenever I wanted to add something, I realised that many of those projects were team efforts and not entirely my own.
Share your product here to get support, feedback, users (w/c 3rd of August)
How do you deal with distractions while working from home?
Would you consider a tool that tracks your activity locally so you don't get banned useful?
I've been going through hell for the last month. I was banned from LinkedIn for excessive activity.
For 24 hours
For 48 hours
For 72 hours
For 168 hours - currently waiting until Tuesday, 10 PM CET.
The only useful advice I've received from support is to be less active.