Am I too early to talk to VCs?

2 hours ago
5 min read

As at September 2026

Almost certainly not. If you have a clear idea of the problem you are solving and some evidence that you have tested it in the market, you are early enough to talk to a pre-seed investor. Pre-seed funds exist specifically to invest before there is meaningful revenue, before the product is finished, and sometimes before the company formally exists.

What "too early" actually means to an investor

When a fund says you are too early, they usually mean one of two things.

The first is genuine stage fit. Different funds look for different things. Not every fund invests at pre-seed and seed, and most have a minimum cheque size they need to write, which means they need the company to be at a point where that cheque makes sense.

The second is that at this particular moment, they are not convinced. Building a standout venture-backed company is genuinely hard, the statistics are not in anyone's favour, and it is a long and uncertain journey. So it is completely normal for an investor to be hesitant after a first meeting, whether that is about you as a founder, the market you are going after, or the product you are building.

If you are already in conversation with a fund, the useful question to ask back is: what would they need to see before you come back?

How to tell which one you are getting

Look at what the fund actually does. Three things, all public:

What stage do they name? If they say Series A or above, they will usually want to see revenue and customers before they engage.
What is their cheque size? A fund writing $250,000 to $750,000 first cheques is built for companies with very little behind them yet.
Do they lead? A fund that leads sets the terms and goes first, which means it is used to deciding without waiting on other investors. A fund that only follows needs someone else to move first, so it is worth reconnecting with them once you have a lead confirmed.

If a fund is pre-seed, writes small first cheques and leads rounds, and they still say you are too early, that is usually the second kind of too early. It does not mean forever. Keep them updated on your journey and ask to reconnect when something meaningful has changed.

The question underneath the question

Most founders asking this are not really asking about timing but asking whether they are good enough to be in the room.

Here is the honest answer to that one. Every investor at this stage is looking at companies that are barely companies. Two pilot customers is not embarrassing at pre-seed, it is normal. A product with obvious gaps is normal. Not knowing what a valuation cap is, on your first raise, is completely normal.

What is genuinely unusual, and what we are actually looking for, is a founder who understands their problem better than we ever will, can explain why now is the moment, and shows the speed and appetite to build something that matters. None of that is a function of how long you have been going.

What early actually looks like in practice

Some real shapes of "early" that get funded at pre-seed in Australia:

A founder who spent eight years inside an industry, left, and is rebuilding the thing that drove them mad. No product yet but a line of colleagues waiting to be design partners.
Two engineers with a working prototype, no revenue, and one customer trialling it for free.
A solo founder with a few thousand dollars a month in revenue from a product they built at nights.

None of those look impressive on a spreadsheet. All of them were funded.

When you genuinely are too early

There are real cases,

You have an idea and nothing else. No product, no prototype, no research, no unusual insight into the problem. Not unfundable, but hard, and an accelerator is often a better first stop than a fund.
You are still looking for a co-founder. Again, an accelerator is usually a better place to start.
You are still deciding what the company is. If the answer changes materially between two conversations, an investor cannot get hold of it.
You have not started. Talking to investors is not preparation for building. It is a distraction from it.

Notice that none of these are about revenue.

Not every company is a venture-backed company, and that is completely fine

This one is worth separating out, because "too early" and "not a venture business" often get confused, and they are very different problems.

Venture capital only works when a company can get very large, very quickly. A fund has to return money to its own investors, so the companies it backs need to have a credible path to being worth hundreds of millions of dollars or more. That usually means revenue growing several times over in a year, in a market big enough to support it, with a product where costs do not grow at the same rate as customers.

Most businesses do not work that way, and were never meant to. A profitable services business, a strong local operator, a software company growing steadily at 20% or 30% a year and paying its founders well: those can be far better outcomes for the people running them than raising venture capital would be. Taking venture money commits you to a particular shape of growth, and if the business cannot or should not grow that way, the money makes life harder rather than easier.

So if a fund passes, it is worth understanding which thing they are actually saying. "You are too early" means come back later. "This is not a venture business" means something different, and it is not an insult.

What to do this week

Make a list of funds whose stage and cheque size actually match you. Most Australian pre-seed funds state both publicly.
Send it. Cold is fine. Many Australian pre-seed funds accept pitches through a form on their site, and a cold submission is a normal way in.
Ask directly. "Are we the right stage for you?" is a completely reasonable first email, and it saves you both months. Most investors will answer honestly, because a fast no is cheaper for them than three meetings.

Where we sit

We are a pre-seed fund. We write first cheques between A$250,000 and A$750,000, we lead, and we back founders across Australia and New Zealand. We invest before meaningful revenue, before the product is finished, and sometimes before the company formally exists.

So if you are wondering whether you are too early for us specifically: ask us. Send us your pitch. We would rather tell you quickly than have you wonder for another three months.