Charles HudsonFounder and Managing Partner, Precursor Ventures

Contextualizing Early Stage Traction #duet #venturecapital #siliconvalley #ai

14 Feb 2025 · 1 min

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Charles Hudson explains why early-stage founders need to contextualize their traction for investors. A million dollars in annual revenue sounds huge to a founder but won't impress a Series A investor, who needs to see different metrics depending on the stage.

It's half the battle. It's basically just the storytelling exercise. The one last thing I will say is that it's great to tell founders all of this in advance, to just grace themselves for the investor perception at the earliest stages. But also, I don't want to discount the excitement at the earliest stages when they have seen some traction.
I don't want to tell people, traction doesn't matter.
I don't want to tell them you shouldn't try to get it. I just think it's.
Important to contextualize the traction you have. Like, at this point, if you're a.
Series A investor, a million in ARR.
Is not impressive.
It doesn't mean it's not a huge accomplishment for you as a founder. It just means relative to the things.
That hit that person person's desk.
A million in ARR does not help you stand out.
In the ARR quartile. Just.