u/Wrong-Material-7435

I’m a first-time founder in Australia and I don’t come from a wealthy or well-connected network.

For founders who’ve raised a pre-seed round from angels:
- Did you approach individual angels directly or go through an angel syndicate?

- Where did you actually find them? Who are they?

- Did cold LinkedIn/email outreach work?

- How did you get your first angel committed?

- What are angel syndicates and how can I get my deal in front of them?

Would especially love to hear from founders who started without an existing investor network and built one from scratch.

With AI, seed is the new pre-seed.

We’re very early and currently have 2 customers:
one came from an industry event, and one through a referral from a friend.

If we retain one of these customers, they’ve already said they can introduce us to other businesses like them.
At this stage, what would investors (angels) consider enough evidence that we’ve found a repeatable way to enter the market?

Events are working for us, but the economics don’t make sense yet. For example, we spent around $8k on an event and got 2 customers from it, so acquiring them currently costs us more than the revenue they bring in.

We’re a very early-stage B2B startup selling into a conservative, regulated industry. Prospective customers understandably ask whether we’re ISO 27001 certified or have a SOC 2 report.

We don’t have either yet. The main issue is cost. We’re too early to afford the full certification and audit process—but we’re already implementing many of the expected security controls and trying to build the company properly from the start.

I also don’t want to say we’re “ISO compliant” or “SOC 2 compliant” if that language could be misleading without an independent audit.

How have other early-stage founders handled this during sales conversations?

Did you use a security overview, completed customer questionnaires, share policies, offer a roadmap, or describe yourselves as “aligned with” a framework?

I want to understand what is causing me to freeze myself and not work at all. It's been 4 weeks. I would love your help.

It all started a month ago when I had an interview for an accelerator and I was all in thought I will be selected. I waited for 2 weeks. In those 2 weeks I was so so sure that they will select me and we will get funded, we have only 2 more months of saves left. But turns out we were not selected.

Before that I was giving 100% to my start up, working day and night. But after that I stopped giving my 100%, I am now always infront of tv and frozen.

Before accelerator we pivoted a few times, we did applied to many vcs and they rejected. I now might have some users but I am not feeling motivated anymore. I dont know what to do.
I lost self esteem. As I have more users I feel like I dont deserve them. I dont deserve to finally embrase that I am a founder. I feel like I dont belong in that founder category of cool people. I am really scared to face competition. I dont know what is happening to me.

How do you turn decision-makers at an event into paid pilot users? We have a booth at an upcoming industry event, and it’s our first time doing this.

A lot of the attendees will be decision-makers or people close to the buying process. I’d love advice from anyone who has done this before.

I’ll think about something, imagine something, or see something once, and then suddenly it seems to repeat in front of me. It feels too specific to be random, and honestly, it’s starting to scare me.

I don’t understand what this means. Is the universe trying to tell me something? Why do I feel like I’m being singled out? Could this be a negative sign?

I feel confused. Has anyone else experienced this?

I’m trying to understand how platforms like Clay and Apollo run waterfall enrichment behind the scenes.

For example, if a user pays around $99/month, but the platform is calling expensive data providers like People Data Labs, Dropcontact, Clearbit, Apollo, or similar sources, how do they make the unit economics work?

I’m confused about the business model behind this. Enrichment credits seem expensive, so how do these platforms offer waterfall enrichment at a reasonable monthly price without burning money on API calls? 🤔

We were speaking to multiple investors for our pre-seed about 3 months ago and got a lot of “too early” or “not now” responses.

At the time, I was still very new to fundraising, but I’ve learned a lot since then and we’ve made progress. I keep hearing that founders should continue updating investors even after a rejection, especially if the investor liked the team but felt it was too early.

For those who eventually got funded through investor updates, what changed?

Was it traction, clearer positioning, stronger founder-market fit, or just consistency over time?

Also, when you sent updates, did you ask directly for investment again, or did you end with a softer ask, like asking for advice, feedback?

I am getting heaps of random Gmail signups on my product every day, usually 3–4 new accounts. The usernames look weird and don’t seem like real people.

Do you think these are bots, fake accounts, or just low-intent users? How would you check?

I am trying to decide between two signup/pricing flows for a B2B SaaS product.

Option 1 is a free trial with credit card required upfront. The upside is that it may attract more serious users and reduce low-intent signups, but it could also create friction before people experience the product.

Option 2 is a limited free plan by default. The upside is that users can try the product immediately, but it may attract random users and delay conversion.

For founders who have tested both, which model led to better activation, conversion, and paid customers? Also curious what changed based on ACV, buyer type, and how quickly users see value.