raise small, then scale. say half the number

A team with great backgrounds, real partnerships, and no live product wanted 3 million at 25. I told them the honest thing: everyone who’s bundled that ask in the last year got rejected.

Here’s why. Your lead would need to put in 750k to a million, which means a large fund taking all the risk on you alone, pre-product. And in the investment committee someone always says: why haven’t they launched? They could have raised 500k from angels and shipped. The partner championing your deal has no answer. There isn’t one.

So make it a step function. 500k at 10 or 15 for audits and a launch with deposit caps. That’s a no-brainer check, something you should not leave Singapore without. Go live, show the integrations, then raise 3 million at 30 or 40. You lose far less equity and you keep leverage, because now the VC is chasing a chart instead of a story.

At the small raise, say half. If you’re raising 2 million, say one. “We wanted 500k and the round was so oversubscribed we took a million” sounds great. “The round was a million and we closed 850” sounds like death. Simple game theory. You want the round to be over.

Don’t name a valuation on stage. The lead sets it. If you say 20 and a fund was comfortable at 15, they won’t tell you, because you might become a unicorn and tweet about them. Say you want a lead who believes in the way you work and you’re happy to discuss what they’re comfortable with. Then push to 20 on the call.

The exception is when you already have sales. A founder with an elite salesperson cofounder and whales lined up shouldn’t raise 2 million. Raise 7. A consensus market needs money and speed. Small rounds are for solving the cold start. Big rounds are for when the start is solved.

What the money comes with: a Delaware or Singapore corp, KYC for you and every equity holder, a YC-style SAFE, a token warrant side letter, a multi-signature wallet (multisig) the investor can see. About a month. Nobody at a big fund cares about doxxing a 50k founder. Anon is fine. A tier two VC on your ass is not. The 2 million from the wrong fund costs you a year of “where’s my monthly report”.

the call where i said it best

The same team asked why no VC had ever told them this. I said that’s our job. Then I gave them the script: we’re not here to fuck around, here’s the deck, ask questions on Telegram, but give us 500k now or go away, I’m not doing a third meeting. Speed is the pitch. Once the integrations are live, imagine the valuation. Someone will take it just to get in at the bottom.

do this this week

Cut your ask in half and write down what you’ll have proven when that half is spent. If the answer isn’t a chart, cut it again.

the line to remember

if you are raising 2 million, say one. don’t be ambitious.