Hey 👋
If your honest answer is "enough for 18 months" or "whatever the platform lets me put in" — we need to talk.
Because that number is either going to set you up, or quietly ruin your next two years.
& here’s why.
The question you're answering wrong
A lot of founders I’ve spoken too think the fundraising question is "how much runway do I need."
But that’s not accurate
The real question should be: what milestones am I trying to hit before I raise again?
And no vague BS like "grow the business." We need to be specific, provable stuff:
Launch the product
Hit £X MRR with Y customers
Land the senior hire that changes your trajectory
Prove one channel actually, repeatably works
Each milestone should do one job: kill risk, prove scale, and prove you can execute on purpose, not by fluke.
That's what investors are actually buying. Not just your idea but Your ability to say "I told you I'd do this" and then do it.
So the amount you raise should be built backwards from those milestones.
The burn rate maths nobody wants to do
The unsexy bit you can't skip.
Your burn rate is:
current costs + planned hires + real marketing/dev/ops spend × months until your next milestone + a buffer
I recommend padding that with 4-6 extra months of buffer, because plans always slip.
If you’re wondering what happens if you don't do this properly: investors will do it for you.
They'll say things like:
"This budget only gets you to milestone two, not three."
"Why does your spend spike in month 12?"
"If you need this much to do that, what am I missing?"
It’s F*’ing Annoying but exactly the point.
Because if you can't answer those questions cleanly, you haven't actually built a plan. You've built a ‘Hope & Pray Wishlist’ with a unexplainable maths attached.
Valuation: the "black magic" bit
Early-stage valuation is mostly reverse-engineered.
The actual sequence most founders run is:
"This is how much I need" → "This is how much equity I'm willing to lose" → "Cool, guess that's my valuation."
Seedrs literally describes valuation as a mix of "black magic, hard math, market dynamics, investor return expectations, and entrepreneurial hubris."
Which is refreshingly honest.
The real number sits somewhere between:
Your valuation (what you believe it's worth)
The market's valuation (what investors think it's worth, based on comps, traction, team, sector heat, and risk)
You negotiate the gap.
Rule of thumb worth knowing: you'll usually give up 10–20% of your company in a seed round.
Give away more than that and you're selling your cheapest equity, ever, right when it's worth the least. Ask for a valuation with no milestones to back it up, and investors either walk or roll their eyes.
The Goldilocks trap: too much money is also a problem
This part that surprises people.
Raising too much sounds like a flex but It's often a trap.
Because:
You dilute yourself hardest at your lowest ever valuation
You invite heavier terms and deeper scrutiny
You get "financial laxity" — bloated hiring, unfocused spend, scaling faster than your systems and team can actually hold
You set a post-money valuation so high that if the next 18 months aren't perfect, your next round is a down-round — which is its own kind of nightmare
Raising too little is the flip side of the same trap:
You don't hit the milestones that would justify a better valuation next time
You're back raising again sooner, more desperate, on worse terms
You end up paying more for your second round than you would've for a slightly bigger first one
Neither extreme is safe. The right number is the one that gets you to real proof points without turning you into a company that's spending like it already won.
Bring it back to you
So before you decide your raise size, stop asking:
"What number sounds impressive?"
"What's the platform cap?"
"What did that other founder raise?"
Start asking:
What milestones do I want behind me before I raise again?
What does my burn actually look like when I stop being optimistic about it?
How much of my company am I genuinely okay handing over, at this stage, for this money?
Answer those three honestly and the number stops being a guessing game.
It becomes a plan.
Investors will still push back - that's their job. But at least you'll be negotiating from a position of "I know exactly why I'm asking for this," instead of "I picked a number that felt right at 2am."
One thing to do right now
If you're a founder who's been wondering whether crowdfunding is actually the right route for your raise, I built a free readiness quiz.
It takes under 5 minutes.
It tells you your score, where you're strong, and exactly where to focus before you go anywhere near a platform. No email wall. No sales call at the end. Just a straight answer.
Whether you're thinking about applying to work with me directly or you just want to know where you stand right now, the quiz gives you something useful either way.
Take the free Crowdfunding Readiness Quiz → https://pitchslaphq.com/
Until Next Time…..
