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.
I've spent a lot of time thinking about the difference between testing a product and validating it.
When you're building software, there are so many things you can measure. Does the functionality work? Are the calculations correct? Can users complete the workflow? Are the security controls working as intended?
Those are important questions, and you can spend months getting them right.
But there's another question that technical testing can't fully answer:
A particular guy was complaining about too generous employee care system in Netherlands. (I am not Dutch, so I do not know the exact rules, but as for me, no system is completely fair to anybody.) I know that without written rules, either employees or employers can exploit it.
Color is one of the most recognizable elements of a brand's visual identity. Consistent use of color in logos, website design, and marketing materials helps create a strong and memorable brand image.
So many of us are hustling trying to get projects and ideas off the ground. We spend a lot of time contacting folks we don't know -- they may be potential advisors, customers, investors. I'm curious to hear what your best tactics are for making new connections online. One thing I like to do before approaching someone I don't know is spend time observing their behaviour on social media and understanding their interests, passions and projects. I'll try to create a compelling offer that I can couple with my ask. What are your tactics?
One thing I keep noticing is that almost everything can feel important when you are building.
Posting content, talking to users, improving the product, replying to comments, checking analytics, fixing small bugs, testing new channels, networking, reading advice, watching competitors.
All of it can be useful.
But not all of it moves the business forward at the same stage.
