How to Show Traction for Pre-Seed Startup
By Adam petty
How to Show Traction for Pre-Seed Startup: The 2025 Playbook That Actually Works
You’ve got a Figma file, a half-working MVP, and a bank account that looks suspiciously like a phone number.
Now you need to convince investors that your pre-seed startup is more than a weekend project.
In other words: you need traction—fast.
Good news: at the pre-seed stage, traction ≠ $1 M ARR.
It’s any repeatable signal that strangers care enough to click, pay, rave, or wait for what you’re building.
This guide breaks down the exact quantitative and qualitative proof points investors want, plus the sneaky tactics founders use to manufacture momentum without looking desperate.
Ready? Let’s turn your scrappy prototype into a magnet for term sheets.
Contents
1. What Pre-Seed Investors Mean by “Traction” (Spoiler: It’s Not Revenue… Yet)
2. The 7 High-Impact Ways to Show Traction (with Real Examples)
3.Checklist: Presenting Traction to Investors Without Looking Desperate
4. FAQ: How to Show Traction for Pre-Seed Startup
5. TL;DR
What Pre-Seed Investors Mean by “Traction” (Spoiler: It’s Not Revenue… Yet)
According to Y Combinator’s own library, pre-seed investors hunt for early signs of product-market fit rather than hockey-stick revenue. Think:
Quantitative
✅ 100–500 weekly active beta users
✅ 30–50% MoM waitlist growth
✅ $5k–$25k in pre-orders or LOIs (Letters of Intent)
✅ 40%+ day-30 retention on your MVP
Qualitative
✅ 10 glowing user video testimonials
✅ Fortune-500 pilot partnership in the works
✅ Feature requests coming in faster than you can build them
Failory’s post-mortems echo the same: “At pre-seed, story > spreadsheet.”
Your job is to package those micro-wins into a narrative that screams, “If we get capital, this graph explodes.”
The 7 High-Impact Ways to Show Traction (with Real Examples)
1. 🚀 Ship a Magnetic MVP & Track the Right Metrics
Don’t build every feature—build the one that proves value in <30 seconds.
Then instrument three numbers religiously:
- Activation Rate – % of new users who hit the “aha” moment in first session
- Week-4 Retention – still active after 30 days
- Referral Rate – % of users who invite someone else
📌 Real-world example: When Scoutnow.ai launched their AI recruiter MVP, they gated the full product behind a waitlist but let users test one resume scan for free. They hit 42% activation and 25% referral, which they showcased in their pre-seed deck—raising $750k in 11 days.
Common mistake: stuffing analytics with vanity events like “page view.” Stick to outcome-based metrics.
2. 📈 Grow a Waitlist That Looks Alive
A static “coming soon” page with 37 emails is a red flag.
Instead, engineer social velocity:
✅ Add a public counter (“#3,271 in line”)
✅ Offer tiered rewards—skip-the-line for referrals
✅ Auto-tweet progress every 500 sign-ups
Tool stack: Tally.so + Zapier + TweetHunter for live updates.
Flowjam used this playbook for their own beta—grew from 0 → 4,800 waitlisted founders in 6 weeks, then sliced the data by ICP (ideal customer profile) to show investors which personas converted best.
3. 🎯 Run Micro-Pilots with Enterprise Prospects
Enterprise logos carry disproportionate weight at pre-seed.
Land a 30-day paid pilot, even if it’s only $1k. The contract is proof of budget and pain.
Email script that works:
“Hi [Name],
We’re selecting 5 design teams to beta our AI storyboard tool. You’d get early access + 50% lifetime discount in exchange for feedback and a case study. Interested?”
Close 2–3 pilots, then turn them into mini case studies (90-second video or 2-slide deck).
Investors drool over logos + quotes.
4. 📜 Collect Letters of Intent (LOIs) Like Pokémon
An LOI is a non-binding “we will pay $X when you ship Y.”
Stack 5–10 LOIs and you’ve de-risked revenue assumptions.
Pro tip: Use YC’s SAFE-LOI template—it takes 5 minutes and looks legit.
5. 🎤 Weaponize User Feedback
Ditch the Notion doc of feature requests.
Instead:
✅ Record 15-second Loom videos of users saying “I love this because…”
✅ Aggregate NPS in a live dashboard (Savio or Canny)
✅ Pin the ugliest bug report next to the fix—it shows velocity
Ali Madhavji’s LinkedIn post nails it: “Raw user emotion beats polished decks.”
6. 🏆 Hack Press & Awards for Social Proof
You don’t need TechCrunch. Niche blogs, Product Hunt “Maker of the Day,” or a university incubator award still count.
Quick wins:
- Submit to BetaList and LaunchingNext → 500–2k early adopters
- Apply to pitch competitions—winning $5k non-dilutive cash doubles as validation
Document every mention in a “Press” Notion board with logos; embed the carousel in your data room.
7. 🎬 Turn Traction Into a 60-Second Story (Shameless Plug)
Investors scroll decks on their phones.
A story-driven launch video can compress all the above into one irresistible asset.
At Flowjam we’ve helped 200+ pre-seed founders stitch together waitlist growth, pilot logos, and user testimonials into a 60-second hype reel that lives on the deck’s opening slide.
One founder closed a $1.2 M pre-seed after investors watched the video before the intro call.
(If you’re curious, book a 15-min intro with Adam—he’ll roast your current deck for free.)
Checklist: Presenting Traction to Investors Without Looking Desperate
✅ Quant Snapshot Slide
- Top-line metric: “427 weekly active beta users, 38% MoM growth”
- Visual: simple bar chart, no 3D
✅ Social Proof Collage
- 6 user faces + 1-sentence quotes
- 2 pilot logos w/ contract values blurred
✅ Waitlist Funnel Graphic
- Entry sources (Twitter, Product Hunt, referrals)
- Conversion to beta rate
✅ Roadmap + Capital Match
- “With $400k, we 5× weekly cohort size → $25k MRR by Q4”
FAQ: How to Show Traction for Pre-Seed Startup
Q: We have zero users. What counts as traction?
A: Run a 24-hour smoke test: launch a landing page with a Stripe pre-order for $1. If 50 strangers pay, you’ve got traction.
Q: Do investors care about revenue under $1k?
A: Absolutely—paid beats free every time. Frame it as “$847 from 9 users proves price sensitivity data.”
Q: How long should my traction narrative be?
A: Two slides max. One metric, one story, one ask.
TL;DR
- Define traction as repeatable user behavior—not revenue.
- Pick one North-Star metric and grow it 30–50% MoM.
- Package proof (waitlist, pilots, LOIs, testimonials) into a 60-second visual story.
- Avoid vanity metrics—investors can smell BS faster than expired oat milk.
Now stop reading and go ship that MVP update you’ve been ghosting.
Your future seed round depends on the next 14 days of hustle.
