What is a pre-seed startup? Write-up from a founder panel on the Isle of Man
We hosted a fireside chat at our event space in Douglas on 21 July with four founders at very different stages. Donovan Dall of Nuffle Labs, Joshua Sinclair of SkinScanner.gg, Jennifer Houghton MBE of Annexio, and Jonny Quirk, formerly of Yelp and Deliveroo and now building DoSomethingElse.AI.
Rather than just dropping the video, we have written the session up with timestamps against every point, so you can jump to whatever is relevant to you.
A few of the things that came out of it:
Pre-seed is defined by risk and uncertainty, not by whether you have funding
Build a painkiller, not a vitamin. Pain gives you the clearest signal you will get
Find 50 users who care enough to take your call, then let them bring you the next 250
Underpricing costs you honest feedback, because cheap users do not complain
Consumer products grow on virality, infrastructure products grow on trust and time
Write-up here: https://www.discoverlaunchpad.com/blog/what-is-a-pre-seed-startup-4-founders-on-what-actually-works