The Pre-Seed Podcast with Fexingo: Idea-Stage Founders, First Checks, and Earliest Funding cover art

The Pre-Seed Podcast with Fexingo: Idea-Stage Founders, First Checks, and Earliest Funding

The Pre-Seed Podcast with Fexingo: Idea-Stage Founders, First Checks, and Earliest Funding

By: Fexingo
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What does it actually take to get a pre-seed check written in 2024? Lucas and Luna sit down with founders who raised their first institutional money before having a product, a co-founder, or even a clear market. Each episode reconstructs the exact pitch, the numbers on the cap table, and the moments that made an angel say yes. Lucas presses for the unit economics that were actually in the deck; Luna asks how the founder dealt with the 40 rejections. This show is for the solo founder who has a slide deck but no warm intro — and wants to see how others crossed that gap. No success-porn, no generic advice: just the concrete mechanics of the first check, deal by deal. #PreSeed #IdeaStage #FirstCheck #AngelInvesting #SeedFunding #StartupCapital #FounderStories #PitchDeck #CapTable #VentureCapital #EarlyStage #StartupAdvice #Business #FexingoBusiness #BusinessPodcast #Technology #FundingStrategy #SoloFounder Keep every episode free: buymeacoffee.com/fexingo© 2026 Fexingo. All rights reserved.
Episodes
  • How to Validate Your Startup Idea Before You Build

    How to Validate Your Startup Idea Before You Build
    May 23 2026
    In this episode of The Pre-Seed Podcast, Lucas and Luna tackle a question every idea-stage founder faces: how do you know your startup idea is worth building before you write a line of code? They break down the concrete validation method used by the founders of Buffer, who built a landing page and collected email signups before the product existed. Lucas explains the 'smoke test' approach—selling the promise before the product—and shares specific metrics that signal real demand. Luna pushes back on the limits of landing page validation and offers a complementary tactic: running a concierge MVP with five paying customers. They discuss Dropbox's famous demo video as a validation case study, and walk through the minimum thresholds that suggest an idea has legs. If you're sitting on an idea and wondering whether to quit your day job, this episode gives you a repeatable framework to find out without spending a dime on development. #StartupValidation #IdeaStage #PreSeed #Buffer #Dropbox #SmokeTest #MVPMinimumViableProduct #ConciergeMVP #LeanStartup #FounderAdvice #BusinessIdea #NoCode #CustomerDevelopment #PreRevenue #ProductMarketFit #Business #FexingoBusiness #BusinessPodcast Keep every episode free: buymeacoffee.com/fexingo
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    9 mins
  • How to Legally Split Equity Before You Have a Cofounder

    How to Legally Split Equity Before You Have a Cofounder
    May 23 2026
    In this episode, Lucas and Luna tackle a topic every idea-stage founder dreads: how to split equity with a cofounder before the company has any real revenue or product. They break down the concept of vesting schedules, discuss the Slicing Pie model for dynamic equity splits, and walk through a real example of what happens when a founding team of two splits 50-50 but one person drops out after three months. Lucas explains why a four-year vesting schedule with a one-year cliff is the industry standard and what happens if you skip it. Luna shares a cautionary tale about a founder who had to buy back 40% of his company from an early cofounder who barely contributed. They also talk about restricted stock agreements, 83(b) elections, and how to have the 'breakup conversation' on day one instead of waiting for it to explode. By the end, you'll know the concrete legal steps to protect your startup's equity from day one. #CofounderEquity #StartupLaw #VestingSchedules #FounderAgreement #SlicingPie #EquitySplit #83BElection #RestrictedStock #IdeaStageStartup #PreRevenueEquity #FounderBreakup #EquityProtection #StartupMistakes #BusinessPodcast #FexingoBusiness #PreSeedPodcast #Entrepreneurship #LegalForStartups Keep every episode free: buymeacoffee.com/fexingo
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    10 mins
  • How to Price Your First Pre-Revenue Startup

    How to Price Your First Pre-Revenue Startup
    May 22 2026
    Episode 5 of The Pre-Seed Podcast dives into the tricky art of pricing for idea-stage startups. Lucas and Luna explore why pre-revenue founders often undervalue their offering, using the real-world case of Buffer's transparent pricing experiment and the lessons from Atlassian's zero-sales-team model. They break down cost-plus, value-based, and competitor-based pricing, and explain why charging based on perceived value—even without a product—can signal confidence to early investors. The hosts also tackle the psychology of anchoring, the danger of pricing too low to attract early users, and how a thoughtful pricing page can serve as a proxy for market validation. If you're a founder struggling to put a number on your MVP, this episode offers concrete frameworks and a memorable rule of thumb: double what you think and test from there. Plus, Luna challenges the 'free forever' tier strategy with data on conversion rates and customer lifetime value. #PreSeedPodcast #IdeaStage #StartupPricing #Buffer #Atlassian #ValueBasedPricing #CostPlus #MarketValidation #FounderAdvice #VentureCapital #PricingStrategy #PreRevenue #StartupTips #BusinessModel #SaaS #LeanStartup #FexingoBusiness #BusinessPodcast Keep every episode free: buymeacoffee.com/fexingo
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    8 mins
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