

Want To Raise A Million Bucks? Here’s What You’ll Need - swampthing
http://techcrunch.com/2013/04/22/want-to-raise-a-million-bucks-heres-what-youll-need/

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siong1987

      There's one more thing that obviates the need for traction:
      social proof. If Marc Andreessen is investing in your
      round, the round will get done, it doesn't matter what your 
      product, traction, team or technology look like.
      
      To raise money, you really only need to be exceptional in
      one of these categories (product, team, traction, social 
      proof).
      
      Since everyone thinks they're exceptional, here is some 
      calibration by way of analogy: it is the equivalent of 
      getting into Harvard or getting 1600 on your SATs. That's 
      the bar to get funded. The bar for success is 1000x higher.
    

One of the comments buried in the comments section from Nivi(cofounder of
AngelList) is actually pretty good.

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dude_abides
A key stat is steady week-on-week growth. This is typically more impressive
than single milestones. Acc to pg:

 _A good growth rate during YC is 5-7% a week. If you can hit 10% a week
you're doing exceptionally well._

[<http://www.paulgraham.com/growth.html>]

If you haven't read this article already, go read it now!

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tapp
Is that for both B2C and B2B companies? PG's article doesn't say, and I have a
difficult time envisioning how most seed-stage enterprise software companies
could generate a 5-10% w-o-w revenue growth rate. It tends to be much lumpier
than that.

~~~
bitsweet
use a trailing six week|month average

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saddino
While idea viability may be validated by traction (read: user acquisition),
product viability is best validated by DAU / MAU and low churn metrics.

That being said, we closed $750K in my last startup after crossing 125K users,
so perhaps traction is good enough at least for the first round.

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fatbat
Interesting metrics though I think the ballpark figures are missing ballpark
examples.

On one hand 100K signups/download seems to be easier to achieve than $50K
rev/mon but on the other hand if my e-comm product sells for $5000 each that
seems easier too.

Nevertheless interesting metrics!

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john_w_t_b
There's a nice dose of realism in this article. If you want to attract
investors, you had better demonstrate some traction.

