Raise your first round without a warm intro

Enough to hit a clear milestone with about 18 months of runway, not a round number that sounds impressive. Work backward: name the next proof point that unlocks the following round, cost it out, add buffer, and that is your ask. Sizes vary widely by sector and geography. A US software pre-seed often lands in the roughly 0.5M to 2M range while seed rounds commonly run about 1M to 5M, but deep tech, healthcare, and hardware need more, and European rounds tend to run smaller than US ones. Raise to a milestone, not to a benchmark.

Most priced seed rounds dilute founders by roughly 10% to 25%, with around 20% being a common landing spot. On uncapped or high-cap SAFEs the dilution is not fixed until those SAFEs convert at the priced round, which is exactly why founders are surprised by their cap table later. Always model the full stack, every SAFE and note converting together, before you sign. The number varies by stage, sector, and geography, so treat any single figure as a starting reference, not a rule.

A SAFE is faster and cheaper to close because it postpones the valuation negotiation, which is why it is the default for early US pre-seed. Most SAFEs today are post-money SAFEs (the YC standard since 2018): on a post-money SAFE you sell investment divided by the post-money cap, and you, the founder, bear the dilution from each SAFE rather than spreading it across the other SAFE holders. The risk is that founders stack multiple post-money SAFEs at different caps and the ownership sold adds up, so they lose track of total dilution until everything converts at once. A priced round costs more in legal fees and time but gives you a clean, known cap table today. Neither is universally better. Decide based on how much certainty you need now versus speed, and model the conversion either way.

Yes, and it is the most fixable gap on this list. Warm intros raise your hit rate, but a cold process built on a sharp, specific target list still works, especially if your traction does the talking. Build a list of investors who actually fund your stage and sector, reach them with a tight and specific note, and run it like a real pipeline. The discipline you are forced to build without a rolodex, knowing your numbers cold and being precise about fit, is the same discipline that closes the round.

For anything you actually sign, yes. These tools and checklists exist to help you understand what is normal and what to question, so you walk in informed and do not waste a lawyer's time on basics. They are educational, not legal advice. Before you sign a SAFE, a term sheet, a co-founder agreement, or any financing document, have a qualified startup lawyer in your jurisdiction review it. The cost of good counsel at this stage is trivial next to the cost of a bad clause.