The biggest lie in Silicon Valley is that seed funding is about having the perfect pitch deck, a huge market size slide, and a billion-dollar idea. It’s not. I’ve seen over 500 pitches, invested in more than 200 companies, and built and sold two of my own. The truth is, most founders are playing a completely different game than the ones who actually get funded.
They’re stuck in a cycle of tweaking their deck, chasing every investor with a pulse, and agonizing over their valuation. It’s a recipe for burnout and failure. The top 1% of founders I’ve worked with? They do things differently. They understand that seed funding isn’t a transaction; it’s the beginning of a story.
The Pitch Deck is a Crutch
Let’s be honest. Your pitch deck is probably not as important as you think it is. I’ve seen beautiful decks for terrible businesses and ugly decks for rocket ships. The deck is a summary, a conversation starter. It’s not the thing that gets you funded.
I remember when we were raising for MovieLaLa. We spent weeks polishing our deck. We had every chart, every projection, every buzzword. We pitched and pitched. We got a lot of “interesting idea, but…” responses. It was frustrating. We were so focused on the document that we forgot to tell the story.
What finally worked? We threw out the script. We started talking to investors like human beings. We talked about our passion for movies, the community we were building, and the early signs of traction we were seeing. We showed them the product, not just slides about the product. That’s when the conversations changed. We ended up raising $1.4 million from some of the best angels in Hollywood and Silicon Valley, including Marc Benioff.
Founders get obsessed with the deck because it feels controllable. It’s a tangible output. But the real drivers of a successful seed round are intangible: your narrative, your momentum, and your relationships.
Your Narrative is Your Most Valuable Asset
What’s the story of your company? Why does it need to exist? Why are you the person to build it? This isn’t just marketing fluff. It’s the core of your fundraising strategy. A strong narrative provides context for your metrics and vision for your future.
When I invested in Anthropic and OpenAI, it wasn’t just about the technology. It was about the story of building safe and beneficial AI. It was a narrative that attracted not just capital, but also top talent and partners. That’s the power of a good story.
Your narrative should be authentic to you and your experience. For RemoteTeam, our story was born from my own struggles of managing remote teams for over a decade. We weren’t just building an HR platform; we were building a solution to a problem we knew intimately. We could talk to investors with a level of conviction that you just can’t fake. We told them, “The future of work is remote, and we are building the tools to power it.”
This narrative was so compelling that we built the company, hired the team, pitched investors, and went through the entire M&A process with Gusto over Zoom. We sold the company for a life-changing amount just 580 days after incorporation without a single in-person meeting. That’s the power of a narrative that resonates.
Stop Chasing, Start Attracting
Most founders approach fundraising like they’re selling a used car. They blast out emails, take any meeting they can get, and try to create a false sense of urgency. This is a weak position. The best founders make investors come to them.
How? By building something that people want. By creating a product that has so much pull that investors can’t ignore it. This is what I call product velocity.
With MojiLaLa, we created a marketplace for stickers. It sounds trivial, right? But we saw a trend. We built a platform that artists loved and that users engaged with. Soon, our stickers were being used over a billion times. That’s not a number you can ignore. The traction was so strong that investors started calling us. We weren’t chasing them; they were chasing us.
Your job as a founder is to create so much value and momentum that investors feel like they’re missing out if they don’t invest. This means focusing on your product, your customers, and your key metrics. It means shipping code, talking to users, and iterating relentlessly. I recently wrote 1.25 million lines of code in 2.5 months with the help of an AI assistant. That’s the kind of velocity that gets you noticed.
The Right Investors are Partners, Not Just Capital
Another huge mistake I see is founders taking money from anyone who will give it to them. This is short-sighted. The people you bring onto your cap table at the seed stage can make or break your company. They are not just a source of capital; they are your partners for the next 7-10 years.
I’ve been fortunate to be an alum of accelerators like Stanford StartX and 500 Startups. The networks and mentorship I got from those programs were just as valuable as the capital. They connected me with the right people, helped me avoid common pitfalls, and supported me through the tough times.
When you’re evaluating an investor, ask yourself:
- Can they help me with my biggest challenges? Whether it’s hiring, product strategy, or future fundraising, your investors should be a resource.
- Do they have a good reputation? Talk to other founders in their portfolio. Are they helpful and supportive, or do they create more problems than they solve?
- Do they believe in my long-term vision? You want investors who are aligned with your goals and who will support you even when things get tough.
Don’t be afraid to say no to the wrong investors. Taking the wrong money can be worse than taking no money at all.
What You Should Do Instead
So, if you shouldn’t be obsessing over your pitch deck, what should you be doing?
Craft Your Narrative: Take the time to write down the story of your company. Why are you doing this? What’s the big vision? What’s your unique insight? This should be the foundation of all your fundraising efforts.
Build in Public: Share your journey. Blog, tweet, post on LinkedIn. Talk about your progress, your challenges, and what you’re learning. This is how you build a community and attract the right kind of attention. This is how you get on the radar of investors before you even need to ask for a meeting.
Focus on One Key Metric: At the seed stage, you don’t need a complex dashboard of KPIs. You need one or two metrics that prove your core thesis. For a SaaS company, it might be weekly active users or revenue growth. For a consumer app, it might be retention or engagement. Whatever it is, be obsessed with it.
Build Relationships Early: Don’t wait until you’re fundraising to start talking to investors. Identify a handful of investors who you think would be a great fit for your company. Follow them on social media. Engage with their content. Ask for a brief introductory meeting to get their feedback on your idea. Play the long game.
Seed funding is a strange and often counterintuitive process. It’s more art than science. It’s about building relationships, telling a compelling story, and creating something that people can’t ignore. Stop playing the game that everyone else is playing. Focus on what really matters, and the funding will follow.
Frequently Asked Questions
What's the most common pushback you get on this?
People often push back by citing exceptions or edge cases. And they're usually right that exceptions exist. But building a strategy around exceptions rather than patterns is a losing game for most founders.
How can I apply this thinking to my own situation?
Start by identifying the core principle behind the opinion, not the specific example. Then ask yourself: does this principle apply to my context? If yes, test it in a small, low-risk way before going all in.
How has this view evolved over time?
My thinking on most topics has changed significantly over the years. Early in my career, I held many conventional views that experience proved wrong. I try to update my beliefs when the evidence changes.
What experience informs this perspective?
This perspective comes from over a decade of building companies in Silicon Valley, two successful exits (RemoteTeam to Gusto, MovieLaLa to Gfycat), and investing in 200+ startups including Anthropic, OpenAI, and Scale AI. I write about what I've lived.