No One Ever Got Funded For Managing to Exist 18 Months or Longer

Often, when I ask founders why they are raising the money they say: “to get us 18 months of runway.” It’s not their fault, they’ve been given that advice from people who should know better.

Here’s the problem: no one ever got funded just cause they were around for 18 months. Most people get funded as a result of making material progress. So you should raise enough money to hit the milestones you think you’ll need to reach to raise your next round of financing plus enough to have a few months to raise that capital. Not enough to just get yourself 18 months further regardless of whether or not you’ll make that progress.

If it will take 24 months to get there, raise 28 months of capital! If it’ll take 10 months raise 15 months of capital!

It’s good to have time in between fundraising to go from selling investors to selling customers, but judging how much you want to raise by some arbitrary time stamp isn’t the answer.

VC’s and advisors should stop giving that advice. It’s hurtful.