You just raised your seed round. What should be your main priority for the next 3 months?

Question

Assuming you already have an MVP...

They threw a pile of cash at you and your quest is to spend it smart. Some of it will go to distribution, but not much before there's a clear PMF. So most of it is going into the product. That means people.

But when you hire your first few employees you want them to be the best for the job. And that can take months...

So what do you in the awkward period between getting all that money and completing your dream team?

Prateek Mathur · Accepted Answer

Forget the dream team, get to $1M ARR as quick as possible. This will help you to get a dreamier team in place.

Parker Miller · Answer

Is anyone pre-PMF actually raising a legitimate seed round nowadays?

Valentin Haarscher · Answer

As Ben Horowitz said focus on the 3 P's (in that order):
1/ People
2/ Product
3/ Profit (not real profit but we needed a P - I guess it's revenues first)

Jan Forsthuber · Answer

Focus on testing the MVP and searching for a PMF. Even better, (pre)-sell it. Get it in front of as many potential customers as you can. They'll probably provide you with more useful information than your dream team members.

Walking around fairs and pre-selling our prototype helped us get to the break-even point only 2 weeks after we had gotten the first pieces out of production (hardware product).

Aleks Miric · Answer

@karanveer Well, yep... That was me. Is there an issue? :D

Yehoshua Zlotogorski · Answer

Slightly different tack but here's the first thing to do! https://racket.com/yehoshzl/rrB8E

Jing Hu · Answer

For the cash: Test MVP, get more validation from customers/clients.

For the hire... get a time machine and start building network with people you are interested to work with while fund raising :p (this is my status ... though... time is still the issue)

Ikenna Paschal · Answer

@jinghu I doubt you can raise a seed round if you're still at the MVP stage.

Aleks Miric · Answer

@karanveer 😊

Jing Hu · Answer

@ikennaobieze I haven't, you are right. 👍 When I said this is my status, I meant I am raising fund and connecting with people.

As for "Test MVP, get more validation from customers/clients." <-- what I'd do if I have raised the fund I'm looking for.

I hope this explains.

Kyle Thacker · Answer

Accept that it takes time to find the right people, which means investing earlier in the process of finding talent. Write up great job descriptions, get them posted, but start searching for people immediately, don't sit back and wait.

Keep the momentum going, if you know you're going to hire another role in 6 months, don't wait 6 months to start the process.

Parker Miller · Answer

@ikennaobieze Yeah lol not sure what everybody's talking about here. Maybe pre-seed / family and friends? lol

karanveer · Answer

@a_m4 no issue, just good to know you're using the intended platforms wisely.

karanveer · Answer

I believe someone asked a similar one on IndieHacker as well....hmmm

Nazan Kurt · Answer

Prepping candidates for hire start years before. People you hired on contract base and were happy with before, interns, mentees, previous co-workers, new grads in your school, people you interacted on GitHub, network of existing employees ... I would start way before raising anything; especially most of the effort is giving back to the community and keeping in touch anyways. It’s rather easy hiring in your own domain e.g. SWE hiring swe. I find it harder to hire in domains I rarely interacted before and still regret not keeping my network wider.

You just raised your seed round. What should be your main priority for the next 3 months?

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