How early-stage startups can position themselves for seed funding
Early-stage fundraising is often described as opaque, and for many founders, that description feels accurate. Long timelines, unclear expectations, and limited access to investor perspective can make it difficult to know where to start or how to prepare.
This article summarizes insights from, Tina Hrabak, Head of Platform at LongJump Ventures, about how pre seed and seed stage investors make decisions about seed funding, what signals matter most at this stage, and how founders can approach fundraising more strategically.
Where early-stage investors tend to focus
While investment theses vary by firm, Hrabak outlines several patterns that commonly show up in pre-seed and seed funding evaluations. Investors aren't looking for a single metric, but a combination of signals.
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Clarity on the path forward: Founders are typically expected to explain how an initial idea could become a viable business. This includes articulating a path toward scale—often framed as a long-term revenue goal—and what assumptions need to hold for that path to be realistic.
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Evidence of momentum: Momentum can look different depending on the company. For some, it may be early users or waitlists. For others, it may be pilots, technical progress, or customer conversations that meaningfully shape the product.
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Execution over theory: Hrabak emphasized that early-stage founders benefit most from spending time building and selling. While strategy matters, progress is often clearer when founders are actively testing assumptions in the market.
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Team awareness: Solo founders are not uncommon at pre-seed, but investors often assess how founders think about their own gaps. Awareness of missing skills—and a plan to address them—can reduce perceived risk.
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Basic operational understanding: Even at an early stage, investors expect founders to have a working grasp of fundamentals such as customer acquisition assumptions, margins, and unit economics, or at least well-reasoned hypotheses.
Seed funding as a volume-driven game
Hrabak describes the early-stage funnel as highly competitive, with many applications reviewed for relatively few investments. In that context, rejection is often about timing or fit rather than the underlying quality of a founder or idea. Investors typically review hundreds of opportunities each year, but for a founder, submitting applications or having initial conversations can feel like a decisive moment.
It's important for founders to remember fundraising is often a numbers game. Don't focus on trying to convince every investor that you're the one. Focus instead on getting a couple of yeses, knowing that there may be a whole lot of nos.
Recognizing that seed funding is a numbers game can help founders maintain momentum and a positive perspective during a time when rejection might run rampant. Knowing these structural challenges, founders should look to find venture networks in local markets, away from the traditional venture hubs of the coast, to increase their chance of being seen.
LongJump Ventures, for example, prioritizes teams working in the Midwest or outside Silicon Valley. There are many other firms that value regional strengths to support startup growth across the county.
How founders can approach investor conversations
Not every investor meeting needs to be a formal pitch. Early conversations can also be used to gather information and understand market expectations. Hrabak suggested founders ask questions such as:
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What does traction typically look like for you at this stage?
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What round sizes and terms are common right now?
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How many investments does the fund expect to make in the near term?
She also cautioned against forcing urgency or pushing against established processes, noting that diligence timelines are unlikely to change based on pressure alone.
Founders should be prepared to answer the following questions as part of early conversations:
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Focus on execution—building and selling create the clearest signals.
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Be able to explain where the business could go, not just where it is today.
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Show momentum through execution, speaking to early learnings, pilots, or customer engagement
To sum it up
Founders looking for pre and seed stage funding should consider the process as an ongoing pipeline rather than as single outcomes. In a process that can often feel like a numbers game, it's important to keep things focused around outcomes vs. theory and process, keep communication brief and tailored, and use investor conversations to learn, not just to pitch.
You don't need to explain everything in early conversations. Use this perspective as a guide to understand what investors want to know as they weed through interest, and you can get into the details later.
Not sure if you're ready to raise?
Getting timing right is just as important as making your first impressions. If you're not sure when's the right time to start raising, read: Are You Really Ready to Raise Capital?
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