They had two paths in front of them.

Path one: license their engine to enterprises. Insurers, health platforms, companies that would embed it into their own products. Longer sales cycles, but sticky once you’re in.

Path two: go direct to consumers. A subscription app, an AI coach, a delightful product people use every day.

Both were ongoing. Enterprise conversations were progressing. A consumer MVP was already built. Their question was which one to pursue.

My answer: you have to choose.

Here’s why B2B and B2C are not two go-to-market options for the same company.

They are two fundamentally different companies.

1. Different customers: An enterprise buyer wants integration, reliability, and a business case. A consumer wants delight, habit, and a compelling reason to open the app compared to 1,000 other apps. You cannot serve both masters with one early-stage team.

2. Different economics: B2B means fewer, larger contracts and revenue that compounds through retention. B2C means acquisition costs that can eat you alive in a crowded market but you could have wild upsides with consumer. The maths of these businesses barely overlap.

3. Different products: The engine may be the same, but the product is not. One is an API and a sales motion. The other is an experience and a brand. Building both means building neither well.

4. Different fundraising narratives: A lot of founders underestimate this. When you pitch investors with two paths, you’re not showing optionality. You’re showing indecision. Clarity on your path is a prerequisite for a compelling raise, not a nice-to-have.

So how do you choose? Not in a vacuum. Not with a whiteboard and a pros-and-cons list, not with your “gut”.

You run a pulse check on both, fast and in parallel. Here’s what I suggested:

On the B2B side: At least 5-10 conversations with potential enterprise customers. Not friendly chats. Real tests of willingness to pay, with an indicative price point. Go beyond your home market to get broader signal, get actual design partners.

On the B2C side: 10+ conversations with potential distribution partners with access to your consumers en masse (not just consumers directly). Companies that already own the consumer relationship you’d otherwise spend years and millions in CAC building.

Then let market momentum dictate the path.

If enterprise buyers lean in with budget, that’s your answer. If distribution partners are pulling the consumer product out of your hands, that’s your answer too. The market will tell you where the pull is. Your job is to create the conditions to hear it, then commit.

This is done-is-better-than-perfect thinking applied to strategy. A few weeks of structured conversations beats months of internal debate. The first version of your go-to-market simply has to exist, and contact with real buyers will teach you more than any analysis.

One final thing.

What about B2B2C? Great question. Most B2B2C companies lean one true direction when pressure tested. Truth is, choosing at the start doesn't close the other path forever. Some of the best companies started B2C and layered on B2B later, or the reverse. Amazon sold books to consumers before AWS became its profit engine. Anthropic launched Claude API-first for businesses before its consumer app.

Sequencing is not sacrifice.

But, at the earliest stage, focus is the whole game. You have limited capital, limited time, and you are fighting against an almost certain death. Splitting focus across two businesses means giving each one half a chance and can be a perfect recipe for doing too much and not doing any well enough.

Founders, if you’re holding two paths right now: set a deadline, run the pulse check, and choose. Then go all in.

Till next time.

Maria Rotilu

But there’s another that’s silent, and just as important. Social capital.

Here’s what nobody tells you when you’re starting out: your response rate on a cold email is tied less to the words, and a lot more to the (perceived) social capital behind the sender. Same email, two different responses, two different outcomes.

That’s the reality.

Some of it you can’t change. Where you were born, how you look, your affiliated known institutions.

But a lot of it you can build. And here’s the part most early founders miss: you have to build it long before you need it.

The founder raising next quarter is too late. The founder hiring next month is too late. By the time you make the ask, the work should already be done.

I’ve built mine over the last decade, through doing the best work I could. Through writing, the podcast, showing up consistently for operators and founders, and being known for something. Most of what carries me today started as work I did years before I needed it.

The good news: you can do this authentically and strategically. Those aren’t opposites.

5 ways to start now:

1. Do great work: Be known to be thoughtful, reliable, consistent, and to do great work, and simply do what you say you will do. You’d be surprised how rare that is, and how quickly it differentiates you.

2. Speak about the work you do. Write, post, share what you’re learning. Not for followers, for the surface area. People you’ve never met will know what you stand for before they meet you.

2. Be specific. Don’t be generally “around.” Be known for something. The founders who compound fastest have a sharp, repeatable angle. If people ask about them, the feedback is often always consistent. That’s the importance of character influencing reputation.

3. Spend, don’t hoard. Make introductions you won’t get credit for. Share intel freely. Always give more than you take. Genuinely champion people earlier than is comfortable. Social capital spent compounds and capital hoarded decays.

4. Pick your rooms. One thoughtful operator community beats fifty random networking events. Go where the people you want to know already gather, show up authentically, that way it scales without effort. You are who you are all the time, constantly.

5. Show up authentically, consistently. Don’t underestimate the power of showing up. It’s actually not about just volume. Nurture relationships genuinely. Social capital is built through deliberate actions over time, not one thing. Five years of useful presence beats one strong week. Find ways to show up that give you energy, not deplete them.

None of this is slimy if you’re genuinely useful. The mistake is treating relationships as a means to an end. The work is the relationship.

So, to the day-zero founder reading this with no warm intros, no fund alumni list, no name that opens doors:Pick one of the five. Start this week. Be useful for the next twelve months without asking for anything in return.

Yours,

Maria Rotilu

How does a toilet maker end up with over 50% of its profits coming from a part that is critical to the AI boom?

Investors love market sizing. But conventional market sizing is lagging, and often simply wrong. Even more so on day zero, the stage at which we invest at Openseed. because many markets evolve in ways no spreadsheet can predict. The disruptive ones especially.

Markets are evolving organisms and the data, even bottom up sizing, is downstream of reality.

The 1988 side-bet

In 1988, Toto, yes, the Japanese toilet company, started mass-producing electrostatic chucks. Simply put, these use static electricity to hold a silicon wafer perfectly flat and still while a fab does very hot, very precise work on it.

Why is a toilet maker good at this? Decades of precision ceramics expertise from sanitaryware. Toto didn’t pivot, they simply diversified the same core capability, precision ceramics, into a completely different industry.

Now, fast forward to 2026.

Toto’s semiconductor business generates over 50% of the company’s operating profit. Half. A toilet maker is one of Goldman Sachs’s top picks on the AI memory boom, and UK activist fund Palliser Capital recently called Toto “the most undervalued and overlooked AI memory beneficiary.”

I’m certain very few people priced an AI cycle into a 1988 ceramic side-bet. Not even Toto.

Two lessons for day zero

1️⃣ The TAM you size is not the TAM you’ll capture.

Markets bend in directions that don’t show up in a bottom-up build. There are knock-on effects too hard to model. The best founders leave room for that, in fact, they optimise for it. They keep fringe applications of their technology alive because that’s where optionality for TAM expansion lives.

Toto’s ceramics know how was sitting quietly for decades before the AI boom turned it into a profit engine. Deep technical capability plus patient capacity building equals optionality you cannot manufacture later.

2️⃣ “Why now” is two questions in one.

Why now? And why will what you build today create knock-on effects that expand your ability to create value tomorrow?

The honest answer is that you don’t fully know which tailwind will matter in five years. Start with the market in front of you, but don’t stay there. Constantly anticipate markets aligned with your deepest competency. Stay ready to capture your tailwind long before it’s obvious.

The pattern

The biggest outcomes in venture rarely come only from the market a founder pitched on day one. They come from the deep competencies their companies built, competencies that became more valuable, and harder to compete with, over time.

To the day zero founders

Stop optimising for the TAM in your deck and start optimising for the capability that compounds.

One of my favourite questions to ask as an investor is “What does the world look like 10 years from now, and how does the perfect version of your solution fit within it”

I’m looking for a world so different from today. Whose potential knock on effects for an astronomical outcome so bizarre, the surface area for tangential innovations is likely.

Ask yourself the harder questions. What can your company become uniquely good at over the next decade, so good that no spreadsheet today could fully price it in? Where are the fringe applications of your technology that nobody is taking seriously yet? What tailwind are you quietly preparing for, even if it doesn’t show up in this fundraise?

Keep building 💜

Yours,

Maria Rotilu

“The Lean Startup taught so many people how to create something worth protecting. Not how to protect it.”

Eric’s new book is called Incorruptible. Teaching founders, how to build companies that stay good, and incorruptible by design.

The book explores a critical founder dilemma, why is it that the more valuable the thing you build, the more valuable it becomes to steal from you?

Watch Full Episode HERE:

Despite this, founders are taught that once you have product market fit, once you" “make it” you’ll have all the leverage.

He calls this magical thinking and he shares how especially the best and beloved founders we know and they still got kicked out of their own company, or the company becomes a monster, a caricature of what they intended, doing the opposite of what they tried to create.

He told the story of Sol Price. Most people know him as the founder of Costco. Few know his first. Sol built a customer-first business, proved the model worked, and lost control of it anyway. Not because it failed. Because it succeeded.

This is not a one off case. It is a pattern. He touches on so case studies in the book, from Novo Nordisk, Toney Chocolonely, Cloudflare, Patagonia, Anthropic, and so much more…

At Openseed we invest in exceptional operators on day zero as first believers and one of the questions I ask founders is “What does the world look like with your solution in its perfect form?” Founders love this question, because this is the image they are building towards, and this is what often keeps them going.

But this conversation surfaced a question I don’t think day zero founders ask often enough: what is the structural integrity of your company? Not just the product, or the team.

The soul of your company.

How can you ensure you protect your original mission of your company? That image you have in your head that keeps you going even on the worst days?

When you finally raise money, when every investor on the planet is suddenly calling you, do not put the famous person who passed on day zero on your cap table just because their logo is shiny. Reward people who are aligned on protecting the soul of your company.

Also, be very discerning, because even some of the most well meaning investors can trade the soul of your company.

We must remember, as builders, there is a responsibility that comes with creation, with bringing something into the world that impacts it. It is our responsibility to protect its original intention for good, especially as it grows because incentives will push it in many directions.

I’ve been thinking about The Lean Startup the last fifteen years. I’m going to be thinking about Incorruptible for a long time. If you’re building, you should read it.

I asked Eric, “If you could change one thing about the Lean Startup, what would it be?” He responded :)

This is a reminder for everyone building, there is a responsibility that comes with creation so it is a good time to ask the question, how does what you’re building affect the world, and are you thinking about foundational guardrails to protect its soul?

Thanks for reading. 💜

Maria

P.s We have our next Stealth Founders Event HERE, join if you’re building, from exploring an idea to already built an mvp, all pre-vc. Slots are limited.

Some of the most important things you can do on day zero to increase your probability of success are deceptively simple.

But compounding works both ways.

Get them right, and everything builds. Get them wrong, and you spend years fighting the consequences.

Here are my top three.

1️⃣ Articulating your vision in a simple and compelling way

There is a one-liner that exists for your company.

One efficient, evocative line that creates the right psychological signal — for an investor, a customer, or a first hire, that names the size of the problem and positions you as the answer.

It needs to be correct. It needs to sound right. And it needs to evoke the right response in the room.

I’ve sat across from hundreds of founders in the last year alone. The ones who have found their line? You feel it. There’s a clarity and a confidence that does half the work before the conversation even begins.

The ones still searching? That’s where the pitch starts to fall apart, not because the idea is wrong, but because the signal hasn’t been sharpened yet.

Find your line. Then practise until it’s effortless.

2️⃣ Choosing what not to do, consistently

There’s a lot of advice on what to do. This one is about the opposite.

At the earliest stage, you are statistically dead. Limited resources, limited time, searching for signs of life. Every yes to the wrong thing is a no to something that matters.

The compounding advantage doesn’t come from one good decision. It comes from the discipline to make the same decision again and again.

Consistency is the word here. Not one heroic act of focus. The daily, unglamorous practice of saying no to the thing that doesn’t move the needle, even when it’s tempting, even when it feels harmless.

This is where most founders struggle. Not because they don’t know what matters. Because saying no consistently is harder than it sounds.

3️⃣ Finding the right first believers

Not just any believers.The right ones.

The first person who meaningfully believes in what you’re building, with real conviction, real resources, real skin in the game, sets something in motion that cannot be manufactured later.

Think of the first domino in a million-piece chain. That’s the energy of the right first believer. They bring momentum. They bring credibility. They unlock doors at the riskiest moment of your journey.

I’ve watched this play out across the portfolio. The founders who were intentional about who they brought in first, their first angel, their first customer, their first hire, built on a foundation that held. The ones who moved fast without intention spent months course-correcting.

Be deliberate about who you bring in first.

Simple things. But by no means easy.

The irony is that the simplest decisions are often the hardest to execute consistently. Anyone can articulate a vision once. Anyone can say no to the obvious distractions. Anyone can get one good early believer.

But doing it well, deliberately, and again and again? That’s the work.

Keep building 💜

Yours

Maria Rotilu

You pitch investors like you pitch customers.

Customers buy utility. Investors buy upside.

And the moment you internalise that, your entire narrative should change.

Here is what the mistake looks like.

You just started the company. You have one pilot customer. You had no real product and still got them over the line through sheer force of will. Somehow they agreed to work with you. Even better, they paid. Best case, it is a high-value logo. Putting them on your deck will open doors.

Then you go into full sales mode. More interest comes in. You now have three pilots. After significant iteration your narrative finally lands. You know your ICP, your USP, and you can deliver the pitch in your sleep.

Now you need to raise.

You have de-risked the company. It is no longer an idea. It has real users and possibly real revenue. Serious progress. So you start pitching.

This is where the mistake usually happens.

Many early stage founders pitch investors the way they pitch customers. They’ve spent the last months pitching customers and have built customer muscle. Because its the most developed muscle, they use a similar pitch to investors.

This is the problem we solve.
This is how it creates value.
This is why customers pick us over others.

All good. But not great. You’re not hitting the mark.

Pitching a product is not the same as pitching a company that builds the product.

A customer is asking, “Does this work for me now?”
An investor is asking, “How can this dominate a market later?”

At the earliest stages there is limited visibility on revenue, margins, or timing. Financial models are useful exercises, but they are rarely predictive. So the investor decision often compresses into a more fundamental question.

Not every investor is thesis driven. Some invest in momentum, relationships, or speed. But the investors who consistently write meaningful early checks usually anchor on three things.

1. Market expansion.

2. Timing.

3. Founder advantage.

And increasingly, two additional signals.

1. Technological congruence.

2. Distribution plausibility.

Your narrative should be strong enough to stand up to that scrutiny. This doesn’t mean listing your features, it means painting clearly and in informed detail your view of the world that is unfolding and exactly how you fit into it.

This requires a different story. Not broader. Sharper.

A logical but non-obvious picture of how an industry evolves, where value pools move, and why your initial wedge compounds into category ownership rather than incremental software revenue.

The AI Trap and the AI Advantage

We are in an era where many founders simply attach “AI powered” to their deck. As an investor I see this dozens of times a week. Surface-level AI claims now reduce credibility rather than increase it.

The question is no longer “Do you use AI?”
The question is “Does AI structurally accelerate your unique advantage?”

A strong narrative shows:

1. Why AI is a platform shift in your industry, not a feature add

2. How it deepens your moat rather than commoditises you

3. Why your data, workflows, or distribution make your AI defensible

4. What improves 10x, not 10 percent, because AI exists

Bonus: Conceptually how your margins on compute costs will get better over time.

If AI does not materially increase speed, accuracy, cost efficiency, or scale in a way that is congruent with your core USP, it is noise. Congruence is the key. Like music that moves, obsessive arrangement that feels intuitive is the goal. AI should amplify the thing that already makes you different, not distract from it.

Distribution as Plausibility

In the AI era, technical barriers fall faster. Distribution advantages compound faster. Historically investors first asked “can you build the product?” Now, can you sell it?

If you do not yet have an outsized founder brand, prior exits, or deep domain credibility, investors look for alternative proof that you can reach and win customers repeatedly. Evidence of distribution unlocking becomes a substitute for reputation.

This can take several forms:

1. Early channel partnerships that materially reduce CAC

2. Communities or ecosystems you already influence

3. Data access that competitors cannot easily replicate

4. Repeatable outbound or inbound engines already converting

5. Structural advantages such as regulatory access, embedded workflows, or platform integrations

You are not merely proving that customers like the product.
You are proving that you can reach the next thousand customers faster than the last ten and all you need is capital to do so.

Distribution is not marketing polish.It is probability math and it materially strengthens commercial plausibility.

Ask Yourself These Questions

1. Market evolution thesis
How does this industry look in five to ten years, and where does value concentrate rather than diffuse. Have a specific story that shows an unusual depth of interaction with the industry.

2. Tailwinds
Which three macro shifts make your success more likely even if execution is only reasonable. Be as data driven as you can, use proxy data e.g, 3 seemingly unrelated data points painting a strong picture of one bold claim.

3. Scaling logic
What you build in the next three years that unlocks real revenue, and what changes between year three and year seven that multiplies company value rather than merely growing it. The difference between $1bn companies and $10bn companies is that they create brand new markets. What knock on effects are likely to create new pools of value?

4. Right to win
What insight, access, or capability you possess that is difficult to replicate. Where you don’t have personal expertise, obsess on speaking with customers, document, and create written content that demonstrates the patterns you’re seeing using data both behavioural and verbal.

5. AI congruence
Does AI multiply your unique advantage, or is it decorative. What specific AI technology are you using? Many founders focus on building customer facing AI tools but talking through how you will 10x product and ops using AI hints at margin discipline.

6. Distribution plausibility
Can you demonstrate how you repeatedly reach customers, not just win isolated deals. The 3 pilots are great. Show a clear plan (again, ambitious but feasible in line with your thesis) of how you acquire the next 15. Paint a picture where the only logical next step is funding to help you unlock this.

7. External validity
If an investor called three credible experts, would they broadly agree that the direction of your unique thesis is correct even if they debated your execution.

Shaping this narrative does not happen overnight.

It is closer to carving an intricate structure from wood. You begin with a rough block, carve the contours, refine the details, then polish until the story is tight enough that most investors leave with three reactions.

They learned something exciting or agreed with it

They see the upside, clearly.
They believe the ambition is plausible.

..and finally, that you have a special sauce to unlock it.

That is the balance. Go from pitching a product that works today to pitching a company that can own a future. From saying you use AI to show why the timing of AI is right and how it makes you inevitable.

From showing traction to prove that your distribution at scale is all mapped out, all you need is funding to do so.

Till next time.

Maria Rotilu

Everyone hopes they are building the Queen.

Here is the harder truth. Most startups do not become what they imagine and by year three, the underlying physics of your business are already pushing you into one of a small number of paths. The outcome feels like destiny only in hindsight.

There are six structurally distinct paths.These are economic and operational trajectories, and by year three, you can usually get a sense of where you may land, yet some will defy gravity.

1. The Queen

This is what venture dreams are made of. These companies find a real complex vein of truth and build around it before the world fully sees it. They anticipate new markets, build moats early, and many have in-baked network effects that make it hard for others to compete later. They do not just grow. They get pulled by the market that they optimised for.

Core mechanics
• Organic demand leads to paid demand. Lower than market CAC by design.
• Retention is high and stable early. High value creation and strong user engagement.
• Gross margins improve with scale. Insane operational efficiency. High margins.
• Culture and execution compound instead of fragment. Strong brand appeal. Cohesive talent.

Leading indicators by Year 2 - 3
• Strong 12 month cohort retention, increasing ACVs & LTVs (Life Time Value)
• Net revenue expansion without heavy discounting
• CAC flat or falling while revenue grows, healthy margins with line of sight to more efficiency

Examples
WhatsApp scaling to hundreds of millions of users with minimal headcount. Stripe turned a simple developer wedge into infrastructure for the internet.

These companies look inevitable only in retrospect because the fundamentals were aligned early. They were right, early, and built fast enough to matter.

2. The Supernova

Looks like a Queen. Smells like a Queen. Is not a Queen.

These companies grow fast but are being carried by capital or temporary tailwinds. They are pushed more by spend, pulled rarely by product. It’s not always an either or, but a balance of both but with a skew to being pushed by capital. They may show early market interest, but it does not translate into durable value creation.

Core mechanics
• Growth is mostly bought, not earned
• Unit economics gaps never close
• Valuation runs ahead of operational reality

Leading indicators by Year 2 to 3
• LTV to CAC does not improve with scale
• Retention is shallow beneath the top line
• Contribution margin is negative without subsidies

Examples
WeWork. Bird. Quibi. Fast.

Queens are often paranoid they might be Supernovas and build deep moats and diversified value creation. Supernovas are confident they are Queens and build like so. The divergence happens silently in the numbers, not the headlines. The eventual death is a lagging indicator.

3. The Phoenix

The Phoenix does not break out early. It spends years building product depth, technical leverage, or infrastructure before the market is ready. Many look like they are dying right before they turn. The nuance here is, Phoenix’s often have high conviction backers with deep pockets and patience to buy them the time needed to create them without conventional commercial metrics.

Core mechanics
• Building optionality before demand
• Long feedback loops optimized for real customer love
• Product depth precedes market readiness

Leading indicators by Year 2 to 3
• Small user base with extremely high engagement
• Strong technical or network foundation without revenue yet
• Clear learning velocity even without growth

Examples
Airbnb before the photography pivot. Slack out of Tiny Speck. NVIDIA built CUDA long before AI hype.

Phoenix companies learn fast before they grow fast.

4. The Boutique

These companies work, but they just do not scale to venture outcomes.

They hit a plateau of comfort and stay there by design or by constraint. Founders often prioritize autonomy, profitability, and control over hypergrowth. A $25m ARR company might be great for founders, it isn’t the dream for most VCs.

Core mechanics
• Profitable, small, controlled
• Founders choose freedom over scale
• Growth is optional, not mandatory

Leading indicators by Year 2 to 3
• Steady revenue without aggressive reinvestment
• Clear growth ceiling regardless of growth hacks
• Founder control preserved
• Limited appetite for dilution or blitzscaling

Examples
Basecamp. Gumroad post pivot.

Not a failure to founders, but usually a write off to VCs.

5. The Long Goodbye

These companies never find real market pull. They survive on narrative, or bridge rounds until time, energy, and capital run out. They stick with it though, people may leave the team, they may cut staff, they keep going till they eventually read the writing on the wall, and call it either because they run out of energy, time and often money.

Core mechanics
• No true product market fit even after several pivots or iterations
• Lateral motion instead of forward motion, very little growth

• Internal complexity rises while external demand stagnates

Leading indicators by Year 2 to 3
• Product changes do not improve retention
• Sales effort rises without better conversion
• Strategy shifts every 6 to 9 months
• Founder energy visibly erodes

Examples
Jawbone. Evernote. Many well funded startups you never hear about again. These companies stay busy but do not move forward.

6. The Flashfire

A short, sharp burst that goes out before the wood catches.Usually built on a perfect paper story but dies from human system failure, not market physics.

Core mechanics
• Team incentives and motivations misaligned
• Founder resilience breaks early
• Organizational fragility under pressure

Leading indicators by Year 1 to 2
• Co founder tension appears early
• Decision making slows dramatically after seed
• Key team members disengage or leave
• Founders avoid hard conversations
• Execution feels heavy and joyless

Flashfires collapse socially before they collapse economically.

Why the future is hard to predict

Hindsight is 20/20 because, in Year 1, every path looks identical. Everyone starts from zero. The Queen and the Supernova both show high growth; but there’s a split, the Queen dominates and the Supernova flames out. The Phoenix and the Long Goodbye both look like they are stalling. Again, splits start to happen.

The difference isn’t found in visible metrics like top-line growth. It’s hidden in invisible behaviours that define retention, margins, and learning velocity. You can never know the future for certain, but if you look at the underlying physics by Year three, you can see it much earlier than most admit.

• Queens grow, learn and build lasting advantage in the right market.

• Supernovas scale fast, but fail to learn fast enough to sustain/secure it.

• Phoenixes aggressively learn and live long enough to emerge transformed.

• Long Goodbyes don’t learn quickly enough to grow quickly enough

• Flashfires break at the fundamental level from missed massive blindspots

You never know for sure because in all of this, there’s the unknown called luck.

Market shifts, regulation, capital markets, and more. However, you can increase your chances of luck by knowing what the “unlucky” ones didn’t do.

May the odds ever be in your favour.

Till next time.

Maria @ Openseed VC

Building a prototype took weeks, if not months, of gruelling engineering.

Many founders stayed in the “thinking” phase too long simply because the barrier to “doing” was so high. Today, the pendulum hasn’t just swung; it has snapped to the other side.

With LLMs and NLP-based coding tools, there’s much good news. The CTO hurdle is no longer really an issue for basic applications in the zero to one stage. You can now prototype very easily.

A founder can spin up a semi-complex application in a weekend and while this is generally good news, this efficiency has birthed a dangerous paradox:

The “Castle in the Sky” Syndrome

I’m seeing a recurring pattern in the zero to one stage: robust, seemingly polished prototypes that look incredible during a demo but suffer from three fatal flaws:

1. The Missing User: The product is often built “head-to-code.” It’s a brilliant reflection of the founder’s vision, but it hasn’t yet been stress-tested by a customer’s messy, real-world workflow.

2. Too Many Features: Because AI makes it so easy to add “just one more thing,” prototypes often try to solve five problems at once rather than mastering one.

3. It’s Actually Expensive: While these tools feel “free” or cheap, the time spent iterating in a vacuum is expensive. It’s easy to get caught in a cycle of building for the sake of building, which can unintentionally delay true value creation.

I call these Castles in the Sky. They are elaborate, aesthetically pleasing, and technically functional, but no one wants to live in them.

The Dopamine Trap

There is a psychological danger in overbuilding.

Every time a coding assistant spits out a working block of code, the founder gets a dopamine hit. It feels like progress. It looks like a startup. You feel like a builder.

However, the more time, effort, and emotional capital you invest into a “perfect” pilot, the less likely you are to listen when a customer tells you it’s useless.

You become protective of your castle. You unintentionally delay customer engagement because you don’t want to hear that your beautiful towers need to be torn down.

The Hard Truth: A clunky, ugly tool that solves a burning pain point for one customer is worth infinitely more than a “perfect” application that sits unused.

Three Considerations for the NLP Coding Era

If you are a founder leveraging AI to build your MVP, you must stay grounded. Here is how to avoid the trap:

• Build WITH, not FOR: Don’t go into a dark room and emerge with a finished product. If a customer hasn’t seen the wireframes or the messy “v0.1,” you are building for them based on a guess, rather than with them based on a need.

• Embrace the “Fail Fast” Ethos: The advice from ten years ago is more relevant than ever. Since building is now "cheap”, your “failed” experiments should be even faster and cheaper. Don’t let the ease of coding lure you into a long development cycle - if it doesn’t work, toss. Try again, and again. Till you find a true problem the market is pulling you towards.

• Prototyping is not Production: NLP coding platforms are world-class for validation. But as you move toward a production-level enterprise solution, you still need a rigorous technical foundation. AI can write code, but in itself without some technical leadership cannot yet architect a scalable, secure company that sells to customers at scale.

• Keep it crazy simple: The tendency to overcomplicate your initial build is real. It will take some real restraint to fight the impulse to “add one more amazing feature”. But at the earliest stages, keep it simple. Find one ideal customer profile, build one feature, let them test it and give you real feedback. Go from there.

Build for the problem, not for the thrill of the build.

At Openseed VC, we back the builders experienced and outlier operators on day zero, and bring an operator network to support from zero to one. Tell us what you’re building on www.openseed.vc/apply

Till next time.

Sincerely,

Maria Rotilu

The business started, it grew and grew, yes - there were a few dips in the “valley of death”. But they rose from the ashes, a steady rise towards victory and the business became the big behemoth we know today :)

It is not always this simple.

If you are building and it feels messy, slow, or demoralising, you are not failing the journey. You are in the journey. The valley is not a bug in the system. It is a feature.

February is an appropriate moment to talk about this. January is statistically hard. Energy drops. Most resolutions quietly die. The gap between intent and reality becomes obvious. Founders feel this more acutely because the business mirrors their internal state. When momentum fades, it is tempting to interpret resistance as a signal to quit or pivot wildly. That interpretation is often wrong.

The valley tests something more fundamental than strategy or talent. It tests resilience under ambiguity. It tests your ability to withstand something without a clear pattern. There is no applause here. No external validation. Progress is mostly invisible. This is where some capable founders lose momentum not because the idea was bad, but because the psychological load feels like a prediction of the outcome.

I like to think of it as a test to sift through who will stay, and who will quit.

Surviving the valley requires fewer hacks and more discipline around three ideas.

1. Pick the right battle, even when your ego resists

This is the paradox. Resilience does not come from grit alone. It comes from choosing a problem so intrinsically motivating that your personal quitting threshold is unusually high.

Ego pushes you toward problems that look impressive, defensible, or socially rewarded. Not necessarily the ones you care about deeply enough to endure years of friction.

Ask a blunt question. If this problem stayed hard longer than expected, would I still want to solve it? Would I do it even if it is likely to fail? If the answer depends on status, speed, or external praise, the foundation is fragile. The right battle feels narrower and sometimes less glamorous.

That is precisely why it sustains you.

2. Reframe. Also track what is working, and double down

The valley distorts perception. Founders overweight failures and undercount progress.

This is a cognitive bias, not an objective assessment. Counter it deliberately.

Even as you evaluate what is clearly not working. Audit what is working, even if it feels small. A customer reply. A feature that reduced churn. A conversation that clarified direction. Micro momentum matters because energy follows evidence. You do not need a breakthrough. You need proof of motion.

Reframing is not toxic positivity. It is accurate bookkeeping. Without it, motivation leaks faster than it should.

3. Do not die

Someone I know once said “energy is an early stage founders’ most valuable resource, not money”. This sounds flippant. It is not.

Most companies do not fail because they were outcompeted. They fail because they ran out of time, cash, or founder stamina.

Reduce burn. Buy optionality. Protect your physical and mental health. Stay alive.

Survival is a strategy. Longevity increases the surface area for luck, learning, and compounding.

The valley is not final. It is where the founder you need to become is built. If January exposed the gap between intention and execution, February is your chance to accept the work without romanticising it.

Do not rush the climb. Stay persistent. The rise only happens for those who remain in the game.

Till next time.

Maria

Did you say you were going to finally start that company but somehow it didn’t happen. It could be for legitimate reasons, but here’s the truth - if you’re waiting to feel completely ready to start a company, you’ll wait forever.

Listen to this as a 15 minute podcast HERE

Listen to Episode

Complete readiness is an illusion. This seven-letter force that destroys more startups than bad ideas or funding gaps.

INERTIA: a property of matter by which it continues in its existing state of rest or uniform motion in a straight line, unless that state is changed by an external force.

Inertia is not laziness. It is the powerful force of the path of least resistance. It is the quiet drag of over-analysis, comfort, and fear disguised as preparation.

The Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (2021/2022) found that 41 percent of would-be founders cite fear of failure as their main reason for not starting. That fear often masquerades as prudence. But waiting for certainty rarely produces it.

At Openseed VC, we back experienced operators who act before conditions are perfect. They know nothing is ever fully figured out, even inside successful companies. What sets them apart is not capital or connections, it’s motion.

Starting does not require omniscience. It requires a few clear anchors:

1. Is my mission ambitious and meaningful enough to keep me anchored when things get hard?

2. Do I have a unique insight or skill that truly gives me an advantage?

3. Is the market large enough to absorb early mistakes and still reward persistence?

4. Do I have any early signs, no matter how small, that users care about what I’m building?

5. Can I manage and absorb the risks ahead, knowing things are likely not to go as planned?

6. Do I have enough belief that I will figure it out as I go, that supporters, believers, and better insights will emerge once I begin?

7. Do I feel a genuine urgency, that this window is open now and may not open again?

When I chose to start Openseed, the logic was unforgiving. The opportunity cost of waiting outweighed the risk of failure. The world does not pause while you gain confidence. Competitors move. Markets shift. Technologies evolve. That made “never” an unaffordable option.

Still, it would be dishonest to claim everyone can start at any time.

Some seasons of life are genuinely harder. Carrying heavy personal debt limits risk tolerance. Family obligations can reduce bandwidth and heighten pressure. Immigration or visa dependencies can make leaving employment legally impossible. In these cases, delay is not inertia, it’s rational caution.

The key distinction is whether you’re planning forward or standing still.

Every founder I’ve backed has faced a moment where hesitation seemed justified. Leaving a global tech role after realising that an idea he had been refining for two years was already being executed elsewhere, by someone less “ready” but more willing. Raised a pre-seed round weeks after leaving her job, propelled only by conviction, a working prototype and early pilot customers who showed early willingness to pay.

Both accepting that failing while moving forward beats regretting in stasis.

Empirical evidence supports this mindset. A 2018 MIT Sloan study by Azoulay, Jones, Kim, and Miranda found that the average age of founders of the fastest-growing new ventures in the United States is 45. These founders weren’t waiting for perfect timing. They acted when conviction outweighed comfort. The researchers concluded that entrepreneurial performance rises sharply with age before flattening in the mid-40s.

Source: MIT, 2019

Faith, in any form, can be a strong anchor in that conviction. For me, it was spiritual. Not everyone believes in that. For others, it’s belief in mission, craft, or persistence itself. For others its a belief in their abilities, a chip on their shoulder.

That belief is not decoration, it’s fuel. Investors sense it. Teams rally around it. Markets eventually reward it.

So here’s the unavoidable truth: you will never be one hundred percent ready.

The data will never feel conclusive. There will always be the risk that it can fail, and truth is, it can. The timing will never feel right.

Yet the companies that shape industries are rarely started in moments of clarity. The question is not whether you are ready, but whether you are willing to trade the illusion of readiness for the discipline of motion.

Because the cost of inertia will always exceed the cost of imperfect action.

Till next time.

Maria, Openseed VC

“History does not repeat itself, but it often rhymes” Mark Twain

If I had a dollar for each time I’ve heard “is AI a Bubble?”. I’d have about $15. So, naturally I thought to write about it.

First, a reminder. Booms and bursts are not new. It is the nature of markets.

The radio industry lit up the 1920s. The video game industry soared and collapsed in 1983. Personal computing surged, corrected and then consolidated in the 1990s. The dot com bubble sent the Nasdaq flying and then plunging. Telecom infrastructure rose and fell.

Then came the cryptocurrency cycle of 2017, the NFT frenzy, the metaverse wave - remember that video by Mark? Now we are smack in era of frontier AI systems that feel like science fiction finally turning real.

Each of these cycles began with a genuine breakthrough. The internet unlocked instant communication and distribution. Web3 introduced decentralised trust and programmable value. AI delivers human level reasoning in specific tasks and measurable productivity gains that once belonged only in sci fi.

Breakthroughs ignite optimism. Optimism fuels speculation. Speculation attracts capital. And only in hindsight do we separate noise from durability. The pattern is consistent: breakthrough births acceleration which brings excess which forces correction, then consolidation happens.

The technology changes but the structure of booms stays relatively the same.

The Historical Dance of Booms & “Bursts”

“Bubbles often finance the assets that power the next era even while they vaporise most of the firms that create them” Carlota Perez

During the dot com era the Nasdaq multiplied 6x between 1995 and 2000 then fell roughly 77%. Venture investment jumped from just over $100million to nearly $20billion. That is 19,900% increase. It was crazy and most companies did not survive. Early winners like Yahoo, Amazon and eBay convinced everyone that everything would move online. With hindsight that prediction was right, but the timing was wrong. Pets.com became the symbol of misplaced confidence. Expectations outran capabilities and the bubble burst, yet the survivors went on to define the next twenty years of a future severely underestimated.

Web3 followed the same rhythm. Venture capital exceeded $30 billion in 2021 during a low interest rate environment that made liquidity abundant. Token markets created trillions in speculative value. The underlying innovations of decentralised verification and programmable money were real (ironically emerging markets showed durable use cases) but many projects lacked defensible use cases or sustained demand. Value concentrated in infrastructure. The founders who succeeded prioritised economic advantage over narrative. After the shakeout, survivors continued building quietly, moving toward the still under-appreciated future of the technology.

Artificial Intelligence follows the same structural arc but at unprecedented scale. Studies show developers using GitHub Copilot complete tasks more than half again faster. We all agree the productivity gains with AI are real. Now, capital is moving quickly. But the macro environment is different this time, and that shapes the boom in new ways. Here are a few lessons from the history we can take;

Lesson 1: Liquidity Pathways Shape the Boom

In the dot com era federal funds rates sat around 5–6% in a climate of optimism and easy access to public markets. Capital was moderately accessible and retail participation was high. Many weak revenue companies listed early and the eventual losses fell on the public.

In the AI cycle the macro environment is tighter. Post COVID rate hikes pushed the federal funds rate above 5% by 2024. The IPO window is narrow and listing standards are higher. As a result late stage private capital are likely to absorb the risk that public markets once carried. Liquidity is concentrated among institutions rather than dispersed retail investors. Speculation did not vanish, no, it only migrated upstream into private rounds where capital is more cautious and more sensitive to macro pressure.

Lesson 2: Visibility and Discipline Matter

Public markets force disclosure. Dot com companies could not hide their financials and corrections came fast. AI companies operate privately for longer, without the same scrutiny. The gap between narrative and performance can widen before reality forces alignment.

The correction is likely to be slower but not smaller.

Lesson 3: Infrastructure Captures Durable Value

Dot com winners built the rails: search, payments, logistics. Web3 winners built base chains and liquidity layers. In AI the most durable value is emerging around compute, foundational models, proprietary datasets and distribution power. Applications multiply but many struggle to defend their position without moats in data, distribution or switching costs.

There will be many winners in the infrastructure and application layers, but it is likely that the infrastructure players will be the largest winners.

Lesson 4: The Impact of Bubbles Is Uneven

Pre-seed and seed investors gain optionality in upside, but they cannot diversify away macro risk. Early portfolios can diversify company-level uncertainty, but not liquidity cycles, interest rate regimes, or sector-wide corrections that shape follow-on financing and exit outcomes. Late stage investors absorb valuation risk. With limited IPO access private rounds carry exposure that public markets once shouldered. Companies feel this unevenness too. Thin application layers falter first. Infrastructure players often thrive even during corrections. Enduring application layers will also win.

What Traits Do Durable Companies Share?

Durable companies solve essential problems. These traits separated winners in dot com and Web3. They will shape enduring AI companies.

1. Solve Urgent and Essential Problems: They solve essential and urgent problems grounded in real need. The simplest test remains the most reliable: the popular filter does it make money, save money or keep you out of jail? This filter matters now more than ever.

2. Unit Economics Get Better With Scale: True algorithmic efficiency and meaningful reductions in compute cost will shape the next generation of durable AI companies. Especially for application layers. Efficiency is not nice to have. It is the difference between surviving and flaming out in a bubble.

3. High Switching Costs, Strong Network Effects: Switching costs, strong network effects and control over scarce resources such as compute and proprietary data. Network effects will define defensibility in this era. Access to unique datasets that grow in value and are difficult to replicate creates a compounding advantage. In this context first mover advantage can become real again.

4. They Are Capital Efficient: They do not rely on perpetual subsidy. They build margin discipline early. Founders who will survive the cycle will think rigorously about cost structure and operational efficiency and build this into their business models early. They can then withstand imperfect market conditions and still move toward financial sustainability at scale.

The Globalisation Shift Away From the US

When the internet emerged it was mostly a United States story. Growing up in Nigeria, Africa I saw the lag clearly. My first computer was in 1998/1999, when we had to attach the CPU to the mouse, and keyboards. When bluetooth didn’t exist and the internet was just getting started via dial up. Meanwhile the US had been selling PCs for a decade and the dot com boom was booming.

Web3 shortened that gap between markets. AI collapses it. Talent, capital and projects emerge globally from day one.

However, although Talent is evenly distributed but compute is not.

A few players have the scale to build and sell a shovel in this gold rush. History suggests infrastructure players will be the largest winners, but only a few can play (are playing) that game. The US, China, Europe.

How This Shapes My Thinking at Openseed VC

I do not spend time debating whether AI is a bubble. Sounds crazy but it isn’t that important in how we assess companies. Cycles come and go. I focus on fundamentals. Founders with domain expertise and unique insight, ambition and ability to execute intelligently and with speed, build a world class team, commercial discipline and acumen - these harness platform shifts rather than get overtaken by them.

Real businesses fly in the boom and gain share in the bust. Its a win-win.

I do think we should be asking another question though, and it is not whether AI is a bubble. The question is who builds durable value that survives any condition? And perhaps deeper question remains. How are we preparing for a world shaped by AI at this speed? boom or “burst”, are we ready for the world we are creating?

Maria Rotilu - Founder & SoloGP Openseed VC

These are the top ten mistakes first-time founders make (and many times second time founders forget to remember) and the hard-earned truths from those who have been there - p.s i’m certain there are a few here you haven’t heard before.

1. Underestimating Time & Capital

“We are willing to be misunderstood for long periods of time.”
- Jeff Bezos, 1997 Amazon Shareholder Letter

First-time founders typically underestimate how long momentum takes to build. A founder of a fintech unicorn once said “double the time, double the money” - hinting at first time founders’ natural predisposition to underestimate how long everything will take, and how much it will cost.

Lesson: Double Your Time, Double Your Money. If you think it’ll take a year, make it two, if you think it’ll cost 100, make it 200.

2. Not Resolving Co-Founder Misalignment Quickly

“A founder breakup is like a company death. You’re not just splitting from a person, you’re splitting from a vision.”
- Brian Chesky, Masters of Scale interview

This was a common thread and the founder who I asked what she would do differently said - paraphrased “I’d move much more quickly than I did. If it isn’t working, i’ll be direct and have the conversation, if it still doesn’t work, i’ll move quickly, instead of hoping endlessly it gets better”

Lesson: Misalignment compounds. Waiting costs you years. Act quickly, give feedback quickly, decide quickly.

3. Raising Too Much Money Too Soon

“More startups die of indigestion than starvation- David Packard, The HP Way

Overcapitalization leads to waste, distraction, and unrealistic expectations. A common mistake in the same thread is also doing too much too soon.

Success is about ruthless and accurate prioritisation. This is especially true when you are early and you are seeing some market pull, but it is in different directions.

As a startup, you have limited resources and time, every decision on what you do, and don’t do will define your potential success or failure. A founder I spoke with recently who had a failed, highly funded first startup highlighted this beautifully – “now, i’m more strategic – making sure the tyres work before pumping the gas”

Lesson: Money magnifies what already exists. If you have no discipline, more capital accelerates the crash.

4. Hiring Credentials Over Capability

“There are no silver bullets in hiring. Only lead bullets.”
— Ben Horowitz, The Hard Thing About Hard Things

Founders often assume someone from a famous company will automatically succeed. Horowitz warns that there are no magic hires—only hard, thoughtful decisions. One of the founders we spoke with who had raised over $60m for a fintech company said

“Don’t over-hire and don’t “over-title”. In other words, don’t go mad and hire lots of people - you’ll be amazed how much you can deliver with a small, focused team. And don’t immediately call everyone C-something. A good number of those people won’t be the right ones to scale with you, but they might be solid foot soldiers. You will need the C-titles for later in your growth story and if you allocate them now, it’s really hard to tell someone they are no longer C-something and you are bringing in someone above them”

Lesson: Pedigree does not equal performance in a startup environment.

5. Obsessing Over Product & Neglecting Distribution

“First-time founders focus on product. Second-time founders focus on distribution, third time founders focus on margins”.”
— Andrew Lee, Partner at a16z Speedrun

Distribution is half the battle. Andreessen argues that most failed startups had decent products but zero traction because they didn’t prioritise go-to-market early enough. Some who did prioritise both, didn’t take enough about margins.

Lesson: Distribution is not a stage. It is a core pillar of company design. Second time founders are strategic about figuring out distribution, sales and margins, many times before there’s even a product.

6. Overestimating Investor Value Add

“Your investors are not going to build your company for you.”
— Elad Gil, High Growth Handbook

As a founder you must operate independently of investor intervention. You’re the driver. Yes, it helps to stay open minded to quality feedback, but don’t overestimate investor value in the process. The myth of the “value-add investor” is often overstated. Many investors actually erode value, and the best ones either don’t interfere and know exactly what they are good at.

A founder i spoke with who is building his second company said to me “i’m doing it differently this time, i am being very deliberate about who joins our journey as an investor”.

Lesson: Investors are accelerators, not operators. Be careful who you bring on the journey and also, it helps to know exactly what your investor expectations are, and ensure you’re aligned, before you enter into an investment relationship.

Bonus Tip: Ask every investor who is looking to invest in your company what their expectations are for their investment.

7. Not Balancing Optimism and Reality.

“You have to be willing to see reality. Growth is the oxygen. Without it, you die.”
— Reed Hastings, Netflix Culture Deck Discussions

Hastings emphasizes data-driven realism, not ideological optimism. Passion is critical, but without market opportunity it is not sustainable.

This climate tech founder essentially said

“I was too idealistic. As a founder, I could see this enormous existential problem for humanity, and I could see that we clearly had an amazing solution and we went to market with that solution using language all around solving the climate crisis.

And unfortunately, that just doesn’t resonate with most people. And so what we have had to do in recent years is flip our messaging hierarchy and not sort of bang on about the climate, but instead we talk about. Sort of what’s in it for you”

Lesson: Market reality is non-negotiable. Optimism is important, but translating it to reality is how things get built. Feedback is oxygen. You cannot impose your will on the market, your job is to find out what is true, and scale it into repeatable value creation that is commercially viable.

8. Mistaking Passion for Market Demand

“The market is the ultimate judge. Not your passion.”
— Mark Cuban, Inc. Interview

Cuban consistently warns founders that passion is meaningless if it is not tied to customer demand. In Mark’s interview he says “ Sales Cures All”. Hinting at the fact that ultimately commercial viability is the true litmus test of a successful business.

Lesson: Passion fuels you, but only demand funds you.

9. Ignoring Instinct

“The more I trusted my gut, the more successful I became.”
— Sara Blakely, How I Built This interview

Many founders have highlighted this, however hindsight is 20-20. Sometimes as a founder you overestimate how much you don’t know, and underestimate how much you know to be true. There is an element of trusting yourself, and knowing which feedback to take vs which to ignore. I talk about “How to Choose Which Advice To Ignore” on my Linkedin Post HERE

Lesson: Advice should inform you, not override you.

10. Misunderstanding Venture Capital Dynamics

“We need one investment that returns the whole fund.”
— Fred Wilson, AVC Blog

Wilson explains that VCs do not optimize for singles and doubles. They optimize for fund-returning outcomes. Founders who do not understand this dynamic misread investor behavior. Not fully grasping what taking venture money would mean in terms of control, direction, and expectation is also a huge problem. This is echoed with first time founders who felt in retrospect, they didn’t fully understand investor dynamic

Also, there are so many things about VC that have nothing to do with you/your startup, but impact you directly. It helps to know them, so you can navigate them better.

Lesson: You are not just pitching individuals. You are pitching institutional math. Understand the math and patterns that guide investor decision making, and the journey is less hard.

Related Article: 10 Reasons Investors Say No, and Won’t Tell You

Finally,

The difference between first-time founders and repeat founders is not intelligence. It is pattern recognition. The mistakes above are not random, they are predictable and even when you know them you have to be very careful. When you understand the forces at play, you make decisions from strength and strategy, not just hope and optimism.

Till next time.

Maria Rotilu

Over time, I’ve observed three recurring personas who show up when you test an idea with the world: Incumbent Experts, Believers, and Skeptics.

Understanding how to engage with each group is critical.

But it’s just as important to recognize that these categories are not rigid. One person can wear multiple hats, shifting between roles depending on the context, their relationship to the problem, or the maturity of your idea. The key is learning how to listen and extract what each perspective offers without losing your own conviction.

1. Incumbent Experts

These are people with deep experience in your industry or adjacent ones. They understand the landscape, the stakeholders, and the underlying mechanics of how things have historically worked. Their feedback is rich with context, which is invaluable for founders still mapping the terrain.

Yet expertise is a double-edged sword. The same knowledge that provides clarity can also impose constraints. Experts often evaluate new ideas through the lens of what has been tried before. When they tell you something “won’t work,” they’re usually referencing an earlier version of the problem—or a past attempt that failed for reasons that may no longer apply.

Use their input to probe first principles. Ask: what assumptions are they basing their views on? Which conditions have changed since their experience? Their insights are essential, but not definitive—especially when you’re building something disruptive.

2. Believers

Believers bring optimism, energy, and momentum. They see the potential in your idea and project it into the world. Their enthusiasm attracts attention and helps you expand your network. In the earliest stages, their support is oxygen. They make introductions, amplify your story, and help sustain morale when validation is scarce.

But belief without scrutiny can become complacency. You still need to test your assumptions. The value of believers lies in their ability to mobilize energy, not to replace rigorous thinking. Keep them close, and give them ways to contribute meaningfully—through intros, pilot partnerships, or narrative amplification.

3. Skeptics

Skeptics challenge you. They focus on what could go wrong. Their critiques can feel uncomfortable, but they are often voicing unspoken doubts others share. If you can respond to their challenges with clarity, your reasoning strengthens.

Some skeptics will never be convinced. That’s fine—they’re not your audience. But occasionally, a skeptic will shift after seeing evidence or progress. Those who cross over become powerful advocates because they’ve tested your idea from every angle and found it resilient.

The Intersections: Where Insight Lives

What’s often overlooked is how these personas overlap.

• A Believer-Expert is a rare ally—someone who combines optimism with deep knowledge. They can help you navigate incumbency while still pushing boundaries.

• A Skeptic-Expert offers rigorous challenge grounded in evidence, forcing you to sharpen your logic.

• A Believer-Skeptic might oscillate—excited about the vision, cautious about execution. They’re useful mirrors for refining your go-to-market or de-risking assumptions.

Sometimes, a single person can embody all three perspectives across time. They might start as a skeptic, shift to a cautious believer after seeing traction, and eventually offer expert-level guidance once they understand your space. Treat each conversation as dynamic. Don’t pigeonhole people; instead, discern what role they’re playing in that moment and engage accordingly.

You Need All Three

Each persona contributes something indispensable:

• Experts bring context and reality checks, helping you avoid naive mistakes.

• Believers supply momentum, social proof, and emotional fuel.

• Skeptics surface blind spots and strengthen your reasoning.

The magic lies in balance. Over-indexing on experts can lead to overfitting to the past. Relying solely on believers can inflate false confidence. Over-listening to skeptics can paralyze progress. Founders who can synthesize insights across all three perspectives build more resilient ideas and stronger conviction.

Practical Application

When engaging each persona, tailor your approach:

• With Experts, ask them to unpack assumptions rather than issue verdicts.

• With Believers, channel their energy into introductions or storytelling.

• With Skeptics, listen carefully and address objections head-on.

And always note how these roles shift. The same person might question your business model today and champion you tomorrow once they see evidence. Stay open, stay curious, and use every perspective as data.

Final Thoughts

At OpenSeed VC, we back founders at idea stage, often before there’s a product or traction. At this stage, what matters most is how well you navigate ambiguity, learn from feedback, and refine your vision. The personas you encounter are not obstacles; they are mirrors reflecting how your idea lands in the real world.

So, when you next share your idea, ask yourself:
What am I learning from the experts, believers, and skeptics around me?
Which voices am I overvaluing, or ignoring?
And how can I integrate their perspectives without losing my own clarity?

If you’re an idea-stage founder looking to test your thinking, refine your narrative, or find your rare allies, OpenSeed VC would love to hear from you.

Let’s build what comes next.

​If you’re an experienced operator seriously thinking about starting your tech startup in hashtag#Europe and:

👨🏿‍💼 Still at your job, but planning to leave to build
🎓 Completing an MBA, Masters, or
👷🏾‍♂️ Already building in stealth mode, and
🚫 Haven’t raised VC funding yet...
​
Join us to gain:
💡 Honest insights from a VC perspective.
💡 How VCs think about hashtag#team and hashtag#gtm strategy
💡 0-1 tested strategies on validating your idea
💡 How to think about fundraising from angels
🔍 How we think about our investments at Openseed VC
​
We’re here to give you honest and useful feedback to contribute to your journey from zero to one.

​📍 Where: 💻 Online
📅 When: 9th October 2025
⏰ Time: 6 PM UK Time

🎟️ Link: https://luma.com/jqdu699r
​
⚠️ Note: This session will NOT be recorded and is for founders who have NOT yet raised VC funding or in the early stages of ideating

Understanding these hidden forces can help founders better qualify investor interest, preserve momentum, and optimize their fundraising strategy.

The Rejections That Aren’t About You

First, some “no’s” have nothing to do with the startup or its team. A common hidden reason is simple: the investor is out of capital. Funds may be fully deployed, in the midst of raising from LPs, or simply prioritizing internal portfolio management.

While they may still take meetings, their interest rarely converts to checks. Signs include vague follow ups or no clear internal decision process. Founders should ask direct questions like when the investor last deployed capital to determine whether the interest is actionable.

Another invisible barrier is reputation risk. If an investor detects a red flag like a problematic investor already on your cap table they may walk without explaining why. Early enthusiasm that vanishes without explanation is often a clue. While it's tempting to press for answers, many won’t name the issue outright. Asking for their biggest hesitation and observing body language and tone can offer indirect insight.

In some cases, the person you're speaking with isn’t the actual decision maker. Even those with a “Partner” title may not have final say as they may need a consensus in the partnership.

When interest stalls after an initial champion, it could be that they failed to sell the deal internally. Ask who else you should speak with and what the internal investment process looks like to avoid wasting cycles.

Internal Dynamics That Kill Deals

Even if your point of contact is enthusiastic, that support may not translate in an investment committee room. Champions can’t always convert their conviction into consensus. Founders should arm their advocates with concise narratives, benchmarks, and a clear IC memo to aid internal persuasion. Still, if the firm’s culture doesn’t reward contrarian bets, support may quietly evaporate.

Opportunity cost is another silent killer. Funds often triage deals based on urgency or perceived upside. A deal more in line with their thesis might edge you out. If interest fades despite initial alignment, the reason might be invisible competition, not a flaw in your startup. Don’t chase vague "not right now" responses. Move on.

Thesis misfit is another under discussed factor. Some investors won’t stretch for deals that don’t align cleanly with their stated focus. If feedback centers around the difficulty of your space rather than excitement about the opportunity you’re probably a stretch for them. Instead, find funds where your startup is the thesis.

When It Feels Personal But Isn’t

Some of the most difficult rejections to process are those that feel personal but are rarely stated. A cap table that looks messy with too many small checks or excessive early dilution can be a deterrent, even if cleaned up. Investors often won’t say so, but silence after cap table review is a key indicator.

Bias also plays a role. Structural and cognitive biases ranging from demographic to sectoral can push some founders to the margins. If feedback feels consistently inconsistent or insubstantial, you may be encountering unacknowledged bias. While calling it out directly is unlikely to help, staying persistent is critical.

The only way forward is through.

Finally, sometimes there’s simply a lack of fit. Vibe checks, gut feel, and alignment can sway early stage decisions. Investors might not even be able to articulate what feels off. Recognise this dynamic without internalising it. Also remember, just as they’re choosing you, you’re also choosing them.

Bottom Line

Rejection in venture capital isn’t always rational and it’s rarely transparent. Founders who learn to interpret silence, qualify interest early, and align with funds where they’re a natural fit can dramatically reduce wasted time and emotional fatigue. Don’t chase every "maybe." Optimize for clarity and keep moving. Just keep moving.

Maria

1. Ungoogleable Insight Through Deep Work

The most fundable ideas stem from ungoogleable insights, earned through immersion, not trend-surfing. These are the insights that look obvious in hindsight but are hard-won by those who’ve lived the problem.

You don’t need to have started building a company to start discovering what customers want. Customer discovery can,and should, start early, while you're still navigating the problem space. Conversations, shadowing, and domain curiosity will surface non-obvious pain points and unmet needs. This deep work becomes the foundation of a differentiated thesis. Investors can sense when insight has been earned versus when it’s been stitched together from blogs.

Think less about “what’s hot in tech” and more about “what won’t let me sleep because I’ve lived it?”

2. Understanding How Venture Capital Actually Works

Many founders misunderstand what venture capital is optimized to do. VCs are not looking for good businesses—they’re looking for companies that can return their fund. That changes how you frame your narrative: your market must be large and expanding, your model must be scalable and exponential, and your story must point to a plausible path to outsized outcomes.

Starting early lets you build relationships with VCs before you’re pitching. These early conversations clarify what different funds believe, how they think about inflection points, and what it takes to earn a term sheet when the time comes.

3. Catching the Right Market Wave

Timing isn’t everything—but bad timing kills great ideas. Iconic companies often emerge not just from solving problems, but from meeting moments of irreversible change.

Founders who “start before they start” have time to notice signals others miss. They see latent demand forming. They spot regulatory tailwinds or platform shifts early. And they don’t just react to the market—they predict where it’s going and position accordingly.

4. Obsession-Aligned Problem Selection

The strongest fundraises emerge from founders whose obsession is palpable—and strategically aligned. Investors want to see not just passion but an unfair advantage. That could be unique insight, domain credibility, or distribution leverage. A founder chasing a trend without lived context rarely inspires confidence. A founder who’s been orbiting the same unsolved problem for years often does.

Obsession needs to be earned, not declared. Early exploration sharpens this edge.

5. Network Readiness and Customer Ground Game

Startups aren’t built alone, and neither are fundraises. Early co-founders, first hires, angel checks, and advisors often come from relationships cultivated well before incorporation. But it’s not just internal networks that matter.

Founders should also focus on building first-customer networks: a set of users or partners eager for a solution and already engaged in the problem. Whether through informal interviews, beta groups, or private communities, these early believers offer validation and traction, even before there’s a product.

At Openseed VC, we back experienced operators pre-product, pre-traction, and often pre-company, because the work that matters starts well before the pitch.

Subscribe to our founder insights and updates and join our quarterly office hours for those thinking of building.

M‍aria Rotilu

Before you start pitching friends, angels, or syndicates, join us for a no-BS session with the Openseed team and founders who’ve raised millions from the idea stage.

We’ll walk through:

• What actually gets funded at the angel stage (hint: it’s not just the deck)

• How to validate your idea with investors before you build

• The signals angels look for in founders, and how to package your story to resonate

• What needs to be in your data room, how to structure your round, and what red flags to avoid

• Why the best angels don’t just write checks, and how to attract them

This is for high-agency operators transitioning to first-time founders, or early-stage builders navigating their first raise.

If you’re thinking about raising an angel round in the next 6 months, this is where you start.

You’ll leave with:
✅ Tactical feedback on fundraising strategy
✅ Honest input on whether and how to raise
✅ Guidance from founders : real feedback
✅ A sounding board without the pressure to perform or pitch

Hosted by Openseed; an operator focused angel stage fund helping experienced operators build and raise like second-time founders.

Limited seats. Save yours → https://lu.ma/ck676s8e

See you there!

Maria

This article outlines 10 hard questions you must ask (and answer) before raising your angel round — not just to look credible, but to build real conviction and avoid painful mistakes that second-time founders dodge instinctively.

1. Why now? Why you? Why this problem?

These aren’t just pitch deck slides — they are litmus tests.
Angels invest in momentum and inevitability. If you can’t clearly articulate why this problem matters now, why you're uniquely suited to solve it, and what makes this timing urgent, you’re not ready to raise. You're asking someone to invest in a movie — you better have a compelling opening scene.

2. What’s your “venture backable” story?

Not every good idea is venture-scale.
Angels backing you are hoping for venture-like returns. So ask: Can this become a $100M+ company in a $1B+ market?What unfair advantage lets you get there? If your story feels niche, service-based, or has a ceiling, rethink your wedge or model before raising.

💡 Founder Tip: A "venture-backable story" isn't just TAM slides — it's a believable path from wedge → scale → dominance.

3. What are you actually raising for — and what will it unlock?

This isn't about how much you want — it's about what the money unlocks.
Angels want their capital to de-risk the next milestone. Be clear on:

• What this capital will achieve (MVP? key hire? early traction?)

• What milestone it unlocks (e.g., a $500K raise buys you 12 months to reach $20K MRR)

• Why that milestone makes you “Series A-worthy” or backable at pre-seed

✅ Checklist: Match use of funds to de-risking core assumptions (tech, team, market, GTM

4. Do you understand dilution and your cap table post-angel?

Raising $500K on a $4M SAFE cap feels clean — until you look up after a pre-seed and realize you've already given away 25%+ of the company.
Before raising:

• Model your cap table out to Series A

• Account for future SAFEs, ESOP expansions, and dilution

• Know your ownership at each stage and what’s “normal”

5. What kind of angels do you want — and why?

Don’t just chase checks, chase leverage and asymmetric value add. Ask yourself, for each $, am I getting a high ROI beyond the value of the $?

Smart angels:

• Open doors (talent, customers, VCs)

• Add credibility and signal

• Won’t slow you down with overreach

Ask yourself:

• Do I want operators or financiers?

• Am I optimizing for signal, sweat, or speed?

• Who can help me get to the next round?

6. Do you have a compelling “why now” for investors, not just users?

Your product might be sticky for users — but why is now the right time for investors to bet on you?
Example angles:

• A market is shifting (regulation, AI infra, consumer behavior)

• Your insight is contrarian but increasingly right

• Competitors are stuck in an old model

🎯 Investor Lens: "Why is this the right time for this team to win this market?"

7. What’s your fundraise narrative, not just your pitch deck?

Decks don't close rounds. Narratives do.
Your narrative should:

• Be tight enough to pitch in 60 seconds

• Show traction or insight (ideally both)

• Spark interest in the outcome, not just the product

🧠 Pro Tip: Use the “Insight → Wedge → Beachhead → Vision” narrative arc

8. Do you have a founder-friendly structure, and can you explain it?

Angels want confidence that:

• Your deal terms are clean (SAFE, standard cap, post-money preferred)

• Your governance structure is functional (who’s on the board? how are decisions made?)

• You won’t fumble your legal stack at the next raise

📎 Investor-Friendly Stack: Delaware C-Corp + YC Post-Money SAFE + 10–15% ESOP pre-raise = green flag

9. Have you de-risked the top 1-2 investor red flags?

Before you raise, know the dealbreakers angels watch for.
Big ones at idea/angel stage - EVERY startup has them, no matter how amazing.

• Founding team misalignment

• No unique insight or edge

• Flimsy GTM or no unique plan to acquire users (SEO, and advertising is not a plan)

• Cap table red flags (e.g., ghost co-founders, weird splits, dead equity)

10. Do you have the materials to close?

You don’t need a data room at this stage, but you do need to be buttoned up.
Minimum viable investor materials:

• Clear one-pager or Notion memo

• Clean cap table (post-angel modeled)

• SAFE terms and target raise defined

• Deck that tells the story + vision

📦 Starter Data Room Pack: Deck, one-pager, cap table, FAQs, SAFE template

Finally: Angels Invest Based On Trust and Momentum

Angel rounds are built on early conviction, but conviction has to be earned.
Second-time founders don’t start raising until these ten questions are answered, rehearsed, and reinforced in every conversation. When you're tight on your story, your structure, and your strategy, the capital follows faster than you'd think.

Yours,

Maria Rotilu

Openseed

At Openseed VC, we are operators. We write the first checks into experienced operators and surround them with an operator network built to support from zero to one. But beyond the money, what should you expect from your first check investors, and how do you unlock that value?

Here are five specific ways your angel investors can add meaningful support early on:

1. Make the Most of Their Network

This one’s obvious. Your angels know people. That’s one of their superpowers. Tap into that whether it’s for:

• Warm intros to other angels or institutional investors

• Intros to high-quality talent who could become early team members

• Subject matter experts who’ve done what you’re trying to do and can offer advice

Be specific. Instead of “Do you know any investors?”, try “Is there anyone in your network you think would be interested in investing alongside you?” Go one step further: rummage through their LinkedIn and identify three people you’d like to be introduced to.

Make it easy. Share a blurb with them, and include in that blurb that they’ve already invested. That social proof goes a long way.

2. Use Them as a Go-To-Market Sparring Partner

Founders often wrestle with early GTM decisions: pricing, channels, positioning, messaging. A great angel isn’t just a supporter—they’re someone who challenges your thinking and pressure-tests your strategy.

At Openseed, we’ve jumped on calls to spar with founders on these questions, offering feedback from our own operating experience or looping in domain experts from our network.

Note: this works best when your angels have domain expertise who are entrepreneurs or operators, in the area you’re sparring on. This is where operator-angels or investor-operators are a huge plus.

3. Backchannel with Other Investors

Experienced angels have been in the ecosystem for a while. They know who moves fast, who drags out due diligence, and who can be difficult post-investment.

When you’re raising, they can help you cut through the noise and backchannel with VCs—even if you’ve already approached a fund directly.

A nudge from a respected angel to a VC can go a long way and help move things along the process. They can also help you prioritize which investors to focus on. That saves time and helps you build a smart, aligned cap table.

4. Get the “Unspoken” Investor Truths

There’s a lot founders aren’t told, like how your deck really reads to investors, whether your traction story is landing, or if there’s a pattern-matching mental model working against you that you’re not even aware of.

Great angels will tell you what others won’t. Use them to review your pitch, refine your narrative, or run mock investor calls. Honest feedback now can help you avoid painful missteps later.

5. Land Customers (and Insights)

Some angels may be potential customers themselves, or know people who are. Even if they aren’t, they can often get you in the door for feedback conversations or pilot programs.

At this stage, every insight matters. Your angels can help you talk to the right people and shape your product around real needs, not assumptions.

Again, LinkedIn is your friend, are there potential customers your angels are connected to? Give them a list of three people and share a blurb to make the intro easy.

The Openseed Perspective

We’ve seen this model work across our portfolio. We’ve sparred with founders on GTM strategies, made intros to angels who ended up investing, and connected teams with pre-seed funds that later led their rounds.

Our operator network has helped with hiring—sitting on final interview panels—jumped into product feedback calls, and reviewed decks to get founders ready for their next raise.

At Openseed, we invest at the angel round stage in experienced operators. We bring a network of operators and builders who know how to move from idea to traction, supporting you before you raise your first institutional round.

If you’re raising your angel round, think beyond the check. Your company is at its most expensive stage, make sure your investors are working for you.

Activate your angels. Ask for help. That’s how you turn capital into momentum.

Till Next Time!

Maria

At OpenSeed VC, we back experienced operators at the angel stage, and one of the most critical early decisions they face is how to split equity among co-founders.

We recently asked experienced founders in our network—including unicorn founders, exited founders, and successful bootstrapped entrepreneurs—how they approached equity splits, lessons they've learned, and how they would have approached this differently if they could go back.

Their insights provide a roadmap for future entrepreneurs navigating this crucial decision.Very quickly, two distinct camps emerged: the case for equal splits and the case against equal splits.

The Case for Equal Splits

Many founders emphasized that, unless there is a strong reason not to, equity should be split equally. The logic behind this is simple: a startup’s success is primarily determined by future value creation rather than past contributions. Equal splits foster alignment, motivation, and shared commitment, ensuring that all co-founders remain equally incentivized to drive success.

However, unequal splits may be necessary in specific situations. If one founder has significantly de-risked the company—perhaps by joining earlier, achieving product-market fit (PMF), or investing capital before external funding—then a larger share may be justified. Founders who took this approach noted that clear expectations from the outset were key to maintaining fairness.

Equal splits work well when:

• Co-founders have similar levels of commitment, expertise, and responsibility.

• No single individual has outsized leverage over the startup’s early success.

• A culture of shared accountability is a priority for long-term success.

The Case Against Equal Splits

Not all founders believe in equal splits. Some argue that equal ownership can create decision-making deadlocks, making it harder to resolve disputes efficiently. Several key reasons founders opted for unequal splits include:

1. Time Commitment Disparity

If one founder is working significantly more hours than another, their equity share should reflect that. One founder shared that asking upfront how many hours each person is willing to commit helps avoid future conflicts.

2. Competing Interests

A startup requires full focus, and a co-founder juggling multiple projects or businesses may not be the best equity partner. If a founder is not fully committed, a lower share or alternative compensation (such as advisory shares) might be a better approach.

3. Leadership and Decision-Making

Some founders believe the CEO or primary vision carrier should hold a majority stake to ensure strong leadership and direction. In this case, equity should reflect not just past contributions but also ongoing responsibility.

4. Life Commitments

Major life events (e.g., relocations, life events) can affect a founder’s ability to contribute. One founder advised that equity should be adjusted downward if a co-founder needs extended time off, as the remaining founders will carry a heavier workload.

5. Financial Contributions

If one founder puts in significant capital before raising outside investment, a larger share may be warranted. However, some founders structure this as a shareholder loan or convertible note rather than direct equity to maintain fairness.

‍Avoiding "Dead Equity" – The Silent Business Killer

One of the biggest mistakes first-time founders make is allowing "dead equity" to accumulate. Dead equity occurs when someone owns a significant portion of the business (often >10%) but is no longer involved in the daily operations.

How to Avoid Dead Equity:

Implement Founder Vesting: Never award shares outright. Use a four-year vesting schedule with a one-year cliffto ensure that only active contributors receive equity over time.

Buyback Clauses for Departing Founders: If a founder leaves early, their shares should either return to the company or be redistributed among active founders.

Performance-Based Equity Adjustments: Consider structuring equity refreshers for continued contributions and reducing the shares of those who become passive.

Set Expectations Early: Founders should discuss long-term commitment upfront and document everything in a founder agreement.

Factors to Consider When Splitting Equity

Beyond the initial percentage breakdown, founders stressed several critical considerations that can shape long-term success:

Founder Agreement with Vesting: Before raising venture capital, founders should formalize their agreement, including a standard vesting schedule (typically four years with a one-year cliff). This functions like a "prenup" for the startup, ensuring everyone is committed for the long haul and preventing future disputes. Never award shares without the 1-year cliff.

Handling Founder Exits: Founders should plan ahead for how an early departure affects the cap table. A clear buyback structure can prevent a situation where a former founder retains a disproportionate stake without contributing to the company’s growth.

Understanding Cap Tables and Dilution: A critical insight from founders was to learn about cap tables early and understand what dilution looks like in practice. Knowing industry averages helps avoid unnecessary disputes over minor percentage differences in equity.

Opportunity Cost vs. Future Value: Initial earnings or personal circumstances shouldn’t overly dictate equity splits. While opportunity costs vary (e.g., one founder leaving a £100K salary while another leaves a £50K job), what truly matters is the long-term value each person creates for the company.

Planning for Founder Commitment and Life Changes: One founder noted that five years in, some co-founders had shifted their priorities while others had taken on more responsibility. It’s important to acknowledge that roles evolve, and equity structures may need adjustments over time.

Tips for Structuring an Effective Equity Split

Try before you buy: Even if you’ve been friends since pre-school, work together in a trial mode for at least six months to determine if this mission is right for both of you. Three months is too short—it’s easy to overlook early warning signs.

Discuss full-time commitment early: If one founder isn’t planning to go full-time, equity allocation should reflect that. Instead, compensate them as a consultant rather than a co-founder.

Be kind but track contributions objectively: People often perceive their work as more valuable than it may be. Set clear, agreed-upon metrics to measure contribution levels.

Consider future flexibility: Setting aside an equity incentive pool can help adjust for increased contributions over time.

Be clear on expectations: If a founder isn’t fully committed or has multiple competing interests, this should be factored into their equity split from the start.

Lessons from Experience

Looking back, founders highlighted key lessons they wish they had considered earlier:

Roles evolve over time: A founder’s responsibilities can shift dramatically in 3–5 years. Setting aside an equity incentive pool for future contributions can help maintain fairness.

Being a founder ≠ Making every decision: Founders must differentiate between ownership and operational control. While their input is valuable, decision-making authority should align with company structure, often centered on the CEO.

Understanding dilution matters: Even legally savvy founders were surprised by how cap tables evolved with funding rounds. Founders should educate themselves early on how dilution impacts their long-term stake.

Final Thoughts

There’s no one-size-fits-all answer to equity splits. What matters most is clarity, alignment, and thoughtful planning. Whether founders choose equal or unequal splits, having candid discussions, structuring agreements with vesting, and preparing for future dilution are critical steps to ensuring long-term success.

For founders navigating these decisions, OpenSeed VC encourages taking the time to get this right early—because while equity is just numbers on a cap table, it ultimately defines incentives, control, and the foundation of the company’s future.

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Till next time!

Maria Rotilu