Early ARR is meaningless if founders lack intangible skills to fundraise
Les Craig · 28 - Investing in the Mountain West with Next Frontier Capital General Partner Les Craig · Feb 27, 2025 · at 18:45
Les Craig, General Partner at Next Frontier Capital, explains why venture firms over-index on early ARR metrics while overlooking a founder's ability to run fundraising processes.
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“This company is doing 600 K in ARR. They might as well be doing zero, because it makes about the same difference in terms of the inflection point of the company. And some people are like, oh, we want to see at least a million. I still go to the fact it's a million is peanuts. Three million is peanuts. Like I've seen companies go from three to seven million in ARR in a year. And you're thinking it's the great, oh, this is going to be the next greatest thing. And then guess what? Founder can't close a series B. Well, why? The market, everything that got all the metrics, like they're not fundable. They don't know how to run the fundraising process. They're not fundable.”
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