Lawder Paul

TWO OR THREE-STEPPING TO SERIES A A lot of software founders are still trying to raise a $4-5M seed round from a pre-revenue standpoint to get to Series A. I get that we all want more buffer nowadays but it's also a harder calculus to go from pre-monetization, to early customers, to giving yourself enough sales cycle time in order to hit $1-2M ARR proxy for a strong A. Which is why inevitably, more founders end up having to raise messy extensions/bridges/Seed II or whatever you want to call them. So my advice is that IF you have the luxury of starting a company today, PLAN AHEAD. Even prior to even raising your first angel round. Break up your path to Series A into 2 or 3 tranches of mission-driven capital. Each tranche has a clear goal that you can rally your team and investors around. For example: First tranche to build the product and get early design partners. Second tranche to get to $300K of ARR. Third tranche to get to Series A. This will help support higher operating discipline and awareness. Incremental purchasing and hiring decisions will instantaneously shorten your runway in a way that a larger $5 million seed round obfuscates. And you'll be motivated to find GTM efficiency faster in the journey. Great habits for long term success. For context, Peter Walker of Carta recently sent an update on the arduous path from Seed to Series A. The survival rate is about 1/2 of what it used to be: "Something like 20-24% of startups that raised a seed round would graduate to their Series A in 24 months or less. For companies that raised their seeds in H1 2022, only 13% have made it to Series A across the 6 industries in the chart."

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📖 Story time: How Paul Graham shaped our Agent+ offering  🚀 During YC, we had a 1:1 with PG and the first piece of advice he gave us was classic: 𝑑𝑜 𝑡ℎ𝑖𝑛𝑔𝑠 𝑡ℎ𝑎𝑡 𝑑𝑜𝑛’𝑡 𝑠𝑐𝑎𝑙𝑒. For us, that meant finding companies and offering to design and build their frontends end-to-end. We’ve been doing this quietly for almost a year, and the results have been incredible. 🤯 By combining our AI-agents with the top 0.1% of frontend development talent worldwide, we’ve been able to consistently ship 1-3 features per week for clients. Founders often describe this pace of development as transformational for their business. More stories & demos soon! For now, here’s an overview of what we're offering at Tempo Labs - YC S23 with Agent+: ⚡ 1-3 features shipped per week, guaranteed 💻 80 hours of design & engineering 🔄 Unlimited design revisions & code reviews 🧘🏻 Pause/cancel anytime TL;DR: WE. SHIP. FAST.... REALLY FAST. 🔥🔥🔥🔥

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How to pitch: The company has zero traction —> “We’re early” You only have 2 customers —> “We’re working with design partners” You currently have no revenue but hoping some pipeline finally closes —> “we’re on track to exit this year at $3M ARR” You’re in the natural kill zone of a FAANG —> “We view them as partners rather than competitors” There’s no way the tech can actually work —>“We’re manifesting the future” And of course: One of your developers uses Co-Pilot to write some front end code —> “We’re an AI company”

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