Hot take:
- Only deep tech startups still need early capital
- Software startups should raise to accelerate go-to-market, not to build product
- Many can bootstrap to profitability without ever raising
What took $1M+ to build 3 years ago now takes 2 people a few weeks. The constraint has shifted from building to distribution.
Closing even an “easy” seed round takes 2-3 months. You can build and validate more in that time than the round would ever fund.
This unbundles “software startup” from “venture scale”. Modest outcomes are now viable because building is cheap, and the breakout ideas can be much further along before (maybe) raising.
Originally posted on LinkedIn.