Two LinkedIn posts every weekday, in your voice.

A fundraising advisor put a number on something I felt in the room: a few years ago, nine in ten VC meetings were about growth. Today, nine in ten are about how efficient that growth is. I learned it the hard way last month. We turned down a term sheet, a bigger number than we'd planned to raise, because it only worked if we doubled headcount in nine months. We don't need 40 people. We need the right 12 and two more quarters of proof. The "grow at all costs" era is gone and it isn't coming back. The founders getting funded now treat burn like it's their own money, because it is, and the ones who learn that before the board meeting rather than during it tend to still be standing two years later. We re-ran the model the night after we said no. Twelve people, two quarters of runway past the next milestone, and a number we could defend line by line. It felt less like turning down money and more like finally knowing what we were building.