Quantitatively?

If becoming a unicorn is like making the olympic team, and a successful IPO is like winning a gold medal or a Super Bowl ring, a successful seed round is like making your high school varsity team. A lot of skill, sweat, and determination, beyond most people’s ability to ever do, and most people who try don’t succeed. But still near the bottom of the trail, within sight when you’re just starting out.

Companies that are going to make it big will find a way, this is one of their first early tests. If they can’t raise small money from small investors there’s no way they’re up to the task of going farther. A few find it relatively easy because of how many connections they have, the brilliance of the founders and their ideas, a compelling product. Many others do struggle, because they don’t have these yet.

The hardest part is to create the company that is fundable — team, product, organization, sales, and so on. I’ll leave that out because that’s table stakes. The add-on for raising money involves learning and understanding law, corporate finance, and corporate structure; developing a company vision; studying competitors and metrics; preparing presentation materials and financial statements and projections; practicing, honing, and then making a pitch; developing leads and then a pipeline for potential investors; working your contacts; lots and lots and lots of hustle and grit; and finally negotiating deal terms and executing on the deal itself.