Every stage of funding for a startup requires a different set of metrics and milestones
Every year I teach classrooms full of students about business. These students end up leaving my classes understanding the basics of how to search for product/market fit — and thinking their next goal is to “get funded.”
That’s a mistake many new founders make because there are only two reasons to seek out funding:
- You have a killer idea that is only partially validated, that you think can get to $50 million+ of revenue in five years with 80%+ gross margins (if margins are lower, you need a lot more revenue), and you need money to get to product/market fit, or
- You already have product/market fit with real customers and real revenue and need money to grow and expand.
