Story Context

Industry: DTC eCommerce
Funding: VC-backed (pre-seed, $650K)
Team Size: 2 full-time employees
Founder Type: Solo founder
Work Setup: Remote

The Confessional

Where were you in the journey when this happened?
We had just closed our $650K pre-seed. I’d been bootstrapping for over a year — fulfilling orders from my apartment, doing customer support at midnight, designing packaging in Canva. It was scrappy but working. The raise felt like validation. Like I’d “made it out.”

What was the challenge or low point you faced?
I tried to level up too fast. I hired a well-known growth agency at $10K/month and signed a $12K branding studio project within two weeks of the wire hitting. I brought on a full-time ops hire and gave myself a $60K salary. The problem is… we weren’t ready for that. The brand wasn’t stable. The funnel wasn’t tested. I was hiring people and partners to “scale,” but we hadn’t figured out what was actually working yet.

What did it feel like on a day-to-day level?
At first, it felt like a dream. I was sending Slack invites, writing briefs, onboarding agencies. But I noticed I was spending more time managing calls than understanding customers. And I kept avoiding our Mercury balance — I just couldn’t look. One day, I went to pay a supplier and got a payment error. That’s when I logged in and saw we had $28K left. In just under three months, I’d burned through 90% of the raise. No real increase in revenue. No runway plan.

Was there a moment that made you realize it had to change?
That day. I froze. I shut my laptop and sat on the floor of my kitchen. Not in a dramatic way — just completely empty. I realized I’d built the image of a startup, not the foundation of one.

What did you do to address it? What helped?
I canceled the agency contract. I let my full-time ops hire go — she was great, but I had no systems for her to run. I paused my salary. I called a founder friend and asked if she knew anyone who could help. She introduced me to a fractional CFO who now works with me 5 hours a month. We rebuilt the budget from scratch. She asked me things like, “How much do you need to survive 6 months?” No one had asked me that before.

Where are things now?
We’ve stabilized. I'm back to founder basics — running ads myself, using ChatGPT for creative, rebuilding our email flows. We’re doing about $9K/month in revenue. Small, but profitable. I check the bank account every Monday.

What do you wish you had done differently?
Just because you raise doesn’t mean you have to act “funded.” I thought I needed a top-tier agency and a polished brand to grow — but what I actually needed was product-market clarity and time to breathe. Money buys you options, not answers.

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