At pre-seed, the question isn’t “how much should we spend?” but “what progress must we make before any spend actually matters?”
For me, pre-seed is where you earn problem–solution fit or early product–market fit mostly on your own burn rate or FFF money. And in that stage, marketing isn’t about distribution. It’s about learning (with or without credit card). You dig into how your first user cohort discovers new solutions, what channels shape their decisions, and how they evaluate alternatives in order to switch to you, stay with the existing alternatives or simply do nothing. If you want to avoid building a sales-dependent organization later, this is the moment to validate those assumptions with tiny, targeted marketing bets.
Marketing is not the budget line item — it’s a way to expose your business model to reality.
Small tests tell you who cares, when they care, and what message actually resonates. That evidence is worth more than any template.
Once you raise a real seed round or a Series A, the job shifts. You shouldn’t spend to “look like a grown-up company.” You scale what you’ve proven. You amplify mechanisms that already work. That's when budget becomes a multiplier instead of a bonfire. And guess what, your investor needs to see evidence of scale of his/your marketing budget, so you better get it proven before.
The danger isn’t under-spending — it’s scaling a pre-mature system you haven’t validated yet.
scaling a premature system is the real danger. seen this pattern too many times... raise money, scale spend, realise the mechanism was never proven in the first place.
My take:
At pre-seed, the question isn’t “how much should we spend?” but “what progress must we make before any spend actually matters?”
For me, pre-seed is where you earn problem–solution fit or early product–market fit mostly on your own burn rate or FFF money. And in that stage, marketing isn’t about distribution. It’s about learning (with or without credit card). You dig into how your first user cohort discovers new solutions, what channels shape their decisions, and how they evaluate alternatives in order to switch to you, stay with the existing alternatives or simply do nothing. If you want to avoid building a sales-dependent organization later, this is the moment to validate those assumptions with tiny, targeted marketing bets.
Marketing is not the budget line item — it’s a way to expose your business model to reality.
Small tests tell you who cares, when they care, and what message actually resonates. That evidence is worth more than any template.
Once you raise a real seed round or a Series A, the job shifts. You shouldn’t spend to “look like a grown-up company.” You scale what you’ve proven. You amplify mechanisms that already work. That's when budget becomes a multiplier instead of a bonfire. And guess what, your investor needs to see evidence of scale of his/your marketing budget, so you better get it proven before.
The danger isn’t under-spending — it’s scaling a pre-mature system you haven’t validated yet.
scaling a premature system is the real danger. seen this pattern too many times... raise money, scale spend, realise the mechanism was never proven in the first place.
Where do you included branded merch? Brand development?
as part of the brand development
Ideal spot!