"Get to 1,000 paying customers first, then come back" — an investor told me
A few months ago I was talking to an investor about VeritasLinks. At some point he said:
"Get to 1,000 paying customers and then come back to me."
I paused and asked him:
"If I already have 1,000 paying customers, why would I need you at that point? Right now I need money to actually reach that number. So if I manage to get there without you, what exactly would we be discussing later?"
He didn’t really have an answer. He just went quiet and changed the topic.
I've been thinking about this conversation a lot since then.
It feels like a growing number of investors have quietly shifted their approach. Instead of taking real early risk, they now prefer to join once the company has already proven product-market fit, has revenue, and the biggest uncertainties are gone. And they still often call these rounds “pre-seed” or “seed.”
I'm not saying this is true for every investor. There are still people who genuinely bet on founders early. But it does feel like this behavior has become much more common, especially after the AI wave started. The barrier to starting a company dropped significantly, so the number of startups increased. At the same time, many investors seem to have become more conservative with their capital.
This creates a strange situation: founders who actually need capital the most (to reach meaningful traction) often hear some version of "come back when you don't need us as much."
I'm curious how others see this.
Have you noticed a similar shift when talking to investors? Do you feel like the definition of "early stage" has changed over the last two years? And if you're currently raising - how are you dealing with this dynamic?
Would be especially interested to hear from other founders who are in the middle of fundraising right now.
#Startups #Fundraising #VentureCapital #Entrepreneur #RaisingCapital #VC #StartupLife
