How to Get Funding for a SaaS Startup

**Bootstrapping** ($0 - $50K personal investment)

Fund from personal savings and early revenue. Keep 100% ownership.

Tradeoff: Full control but slower growth. Works best when you can build the MVP yourself.

**Angel investors** ($25K - $250K)

Individual investors who write checks at the earliest stage, often pre-revenue.

Tradeoff: Faster than VC but smaller checks. Angels often provide mentorship and connections.

**Pre-seed VC** ($250K - $2M)

Institutional funds that invest at the idea or prototype stage.

Tradeoff: Dilution of 10-20%. Expect to show a clear market opportunity and early traction signals.

**Seed round** ($1M - $5M)

First major institutional round, typically after some product-market fit signals.

Tradeoff: Dilution of 15-25%. Investors expect measurable traction: MRR, retention, growth rate.

**Revenue-based financing** ($50K - $500K)

Borrow against future revenue without giving up equity.

Tradeoff: No dilution but you repay from revenue. Works best with predictable MRR.

- Clear problem definition and evidence that people have this problem

- A product that someone is using (even if early and rough)

- Some signal of demand: waitlist, LOIs, paying customers, or strong engagement

- A founding team that can execute (technical ability or domain expertise)

- A large enough market to justify venture-scale returns

- Validate your idea before pitching - investors want evidence, not just a vision

- Know your numbers: CAC, LTV, churn, MRR growth rate

- Build a simple pitch deck (10-12 slides): problem, solution, market, traction, team, ask

- Talk to 20+ potential customers and document what you learned

- Have a clear answer for "why you?" and "why now?"