Raise less than you think. Then raise it faster.

The most common mistake I see in first rounds isn’t a bad valuation. It’s a number nobody can explain, not the founder and certainly not me.

“We’re raising a million” usually means “a million sounds like a round”. Investors hear that at once. So start from the other end: which milestone makes the next round easy, and how long does it take to get there?

The arithmetic, on one napkin

Here is the plan of a founder I met last month, with her permission and the numbers rounded.

She had planned to ask for €1.5 million. The smaller number was easier to defend, and it closed in seven weeks with two investors who had passed on the bigger one.

Speed is the cheapest money you’ll ever raise.

The buffer is for surprises. If you need a year of slack, the milestone is wrong.