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Given that we'd sunk about $300K of our own cash into the company, I don't think $750K was out of line for what we were doing, or for the VC firms we were talki

Given that we'd sunk about $300K of our own cash into the company, I don't think $750K was out of line for what we were doing, or for the VC firms we were talking to which tend to do much bigger deals. The bigger problem was we were doing something really technical that required a lot deeper pockets, and people were nervous to invest without seeing more traction. Which is reasonable; capital isn't flowing like champagne like a lot of people seem to believe.

trevelyan 12y ago
I'm not trying to be critical. I've been following YC since it started and my impression is that it became popular largely because PG was the first guy willing to give developers rent money and a decent valuation on the basis of basically nothing. In contrast, what you are talking about isn't a seed round in the way that most people conceive of it. > capital isn't flowing like champagne like a lot of people seem to believe. Absolutely, and I don't think it really has since 2000 to be honest. There was a minor boom around 2004 for "user-generated content" and "social/video" sites, and then another for mobile apps after the app store launched. But the general trend has been towards low-value "seed" rounds for demonstrating traction, and then lots of financing for late-stage companies that would previously have already IPO'd. I hope you guys get the funding you need. I'm just not sure that your experience is relevant to a discussion on the availability of seed funding, that's all. What this conversation really highlights is the way no-one here even seems to even have the language to talk about what is reasonable in terms of expectations/traction for mid-stage startups that are more capital intensive.