The world is flush with seed money. So if you have a good team and a relatively good idea you will fairly easily raise a seed round from someone.
And it's generally an awful idea for founders: (1) because most assume they will raise a Series-A when statistically they won't and (2) you don't learn to hustle when you have millions in the bank.
The best way is to follow companies like Buildkite. Hustle your way to a few million a year in ARR and then you can reach out to Series A investors on your terms instead of theirs.
$20.2 million in Series A funding at a $145 million valuation [0] is stellar for a bootstrapped company. I'll take this as inspiration for my startup. Of course, it's much harder to build this way, but money breeds complacency, so it's probably best not to look for it.
Do you have experience with the seed/Series-A dynamic?
On (2), you don't learn to hustle either when you have nothing in the bank, the runway ran out, credit card debt, and no time because of the two day jobs to cover domestic and business expenses. A few customers won't bring enough to give you time to work on the product or sales.
Having no money is generally an awful idea for founders too.
> most assume they will raise a Series-A when statistically they won't
> The best way [...] Hustle your way to a few million a year in ARR and then
Rather than just highlighting likely failure with just the first approach, I think you need to compare both.
Because statistically they won't succeed at hustling to a few million a year in ARR either.
Having no money might make them even less likely to succeed. (I'm not sure about this though, it would be interesting to see a good study.)
And it's generally an awful idea for founders: (1) because most assume they will raise a Series-A when statistically they won't and (2) you don't learn to hustle when you have millions in the bank.
The best way is to follow companies like Buildkite. Hustle your way to a few million a year in ARR and then you can reach out to Series A investors on your terms instead of theirs.