Practical analysis on founding decisions, early-stage funding, and the structural choices that determine whether a startup survives its first three years.
Focused pieces on strategy, funding, and early operational decisions for founders.
1. Investor appetite at the pre-seed stage has narrowed since 2022. Fewer funds are writing cheques under €300 000 without some evidence of user retention, even for very early products.
2. The diligence questions have shifted from "what is the market size" toward "who specifically has paid for this, and why." Founders who can answer that precisely tend to move faster through first conversations.
Read more1. Most early-stage teams skip formal hiring criteria and rely on personal networks. That works until it doesn't - usually around the third or fourth hire, when misaligned expectations start costing time.
Read more1. Iteration is necessary early on. Extended iteration without a defined stopping condition is a different problem - one that often looks like responsiveness but functions as avoidance.
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1. Entering a second market before the first one is stable is a common pattern. The costs are rarely obvious at the time - they show up six months later in support overhead and diluted team focus.
Read moreTwo founders who have taken courses through Jikexao share what changed in how they approach early-stage decisions. Neither outcome is guaranteed - these are their own observations.
"I had been running the same pricing experiment for four months. The course helped me see I was measuring the wrong thing entirely."
"The hiring module was blunt about what goes wrong. I recognised three mistakes I had already made and one I was about to make."
