How to Show Traction for Pre-Seed Startup: The Only Guide You’ll Ever Need

“So… what traction do you have?”

If you’ve ever pitched an investor at the pre-seed stage, you know that question can feel like a pop-quiz on a book you haven’t finished. You’re still building the MVP, revenue is closer to Monopoly money than USD, and your biggest user is still your mom.

Relax—traction at pre-seed isn’t just MRR graphs hockey-sticking to the moon. It’s any evidence that real people care about the problem you’re solving and that your solution is the one they’ll pay for. Today we’re unpacking how to show traction for pre-seed startup in a way that makes investors lean forward instead of reaching for the door.

In the next 10 minutes you’ll get:

• The exact traction signals investors scan for before a term sheet• 6 battle-tested playbooks (with real examples) to manufacture momentum—even with zero revenue• A side-by-side look at what Y Combinator, Failory, and LinkedIn’s Ali Madhavji say matters most• A copy-paste checklist you can staple to your next pitch deck

Let’s roll.

What Pre-Seed Investors Really Mean by “Traction”

Traction = Proof that you’re de-risking the two scariest unknowns:

Does anyone want this badly enough to change behavior?

Can you repeatedly reach those people at a reasonable cost?

Notice the absence of “$1 M ARR.” At pre-seed, quantitative signals (metrics) are great, but qualitative evidence (stories, partnerships, waitlists) is often more believable because it’s earlier and cheaper to obtain.

External validation: According to YC Partner Aaron Harris, “At pre-seed we look for progress on the product, evidence of demand, and a team that ships fast—not necessarily revenue” .

Traction Menu: 6 Ways to Serve Proof

Below are six proven strategies. Pick two to nail rather than six to dabble.

1. MVP Usage That Doesn’t Suck

What investors want to see:• DAU/MAU ratio > 20 % (consumer) or weekly active teams > 30 % (B2B)• Session length beating industry benchmarks• Users inviting others organically (viral coefficient > 0.3)

How to manufacture it:✅ Use no-code (Bubble, Flutter Flow) to ship in days, not months
✅ Offer concierge onboarding—yes, literally Zoom every new signup for the first 50
✅ Build the “fake door” feature: a button that says “Share with teammate” which logs intent even if the feature isn’t live yet

Real-world mini-case: The YC startup CommandBar launched their MVP to 60 design partners in Figma communities. After 3 weeks they had 1,200 weekly active devs and a 43 % week-over-week retention. Result: $500 k pre-seed led by Thrive Capital.

Mistake to avoid: Don’t pad your numbers with paid ads unless you also disclose CAC. Investors will smell the burn.

2. User Feedback That Screams “Please Don’t Take This Away”

What investors want to see:• Superhuman-style 40 % “very disappointed” survey • Video testimonials (Loox, Testimonial.to)• Public praise on Twitter/LinkedIn you didn’t bribe them for

How to collect it:
‍✅ Send a Typeform 7 days after signup: “What’s the #1 thing you’d miss if we disappeared?”
✅ Offer a 15-min user interview in exchange for a $25 Amazon card
✅ Package quotes into a 90-second Loom montage—works great in pitch decks

External resource: Check out MomTestBook.com for non-leading interview questions that actually validate demand.

3. Pilot Programs & Early Partnerships

What investors want to see:• LOIs (Letters of Intent) from recognizable logos• Paid pilots > $5 k/month or unpaid pilots with clear success metrics• Case studies you can publish after 30 days

How to land the first pilot:
‍✅ Scrape LinkedIn Sales Navigator for Heads of Ops at 200-target companies; send a 3-sentence cold email with a Loom demo
✅ Offer a “Founding Customer” badge on your website—status is currency
✅ Use Stripe Invoicing to bill them even if it’s $1; paying anything > free is traction

Mini-case: YC alum Ramped closed pilots with 5 staffing agencies before writing a line of code. They manually matched candidates on Airtable and charged $500 per placement. Those LOIs helped raise a $1.1 M pre-seed.

4. Waitlists & Communities

What investors want to see:• A waitlist growing > 10 % week-over-week• A private Slack/Discord with daily active conversations• Referral mechanics baked in (e.g., “Skip 100 spots if you tweet”)

How to build it:✅ Launch on Product Hunt “coming soon” page—collect emails via LaunchRock
‍✅ Host bi-weekly Twitter Spaces on the pain point; pin the waitlist link
✅ Gamify with Viral Loops leaderboard

Pro tip: Flowjam (yep, that’s us) helped a fintech startup turn a 4,000-person waitlist into 1,200 beta users with a 90-second launch video that teased the “skip-the-line” feature. Watch the teardown here.

5. Pre-Orders & Letters of Intent

What investors want to see:• Actual credit-card pre-orders (use Gumroad or Stripe Payment Links)• LOIs signed by budget holders, not interns

How to secure them:✅ Offer 50 % lifetime discount for the first 100 seats
✅ Create a one-pager ROI calculator: “Save X/yr,payonlyY today”
✅ Use HelloSign templates—one click and it’s legally binding

Mini-case:B2B SaaS Pylon collected $38 k in pre-orders from 9 design partners before YC demo day. Their slide deck literally showed Stripe payouts—an instant credibility bomb.

6. Press, Awards, & Social Proof

What investors want to see:• Tier-1 tech press (TechCrunch, Forbes) or niche vertical media• Accelerator acceptances (YC, Techstars)• Industry awards (Product Hunt “Product of the Day,” G2 “High Performer”)

How to get it:✅ Use HelpAReporter.com to pitch journalists hungry for sources✅ Apply to every “Top 50 Startups to Watch” list—Failory curates one annually
✅ Turn your traction stats into a 280-character tweetstorm; tag @TechCrunch reporters who cover your space

Mistake to avoid: Don’t pay for pay-to-play “awards.” Investors have a sixth sense for vanity badges.

YC vs Failory vs LinkedIn: Who Says What

Y Combinator Build something people want. They love the “Ramen Metric”—if users would eat ramen to keep your product, that’s traction. They underweight pure storytelling.

Failory Traction is velocity, not speed. They obsess over iteration cycles—how fast you ship > how big you are. They sometimes ignore enterprise LOIs.

Ali Madhavji (LinkedIn)Lead with social proof. Warm intros and testimonials from industry insiders carry more weight than raw numbers. He occasionally underweights hard metrics.

Takeaway: Blend all three. Lead with data, season with story.

60-Second Traction Checklist

Print this and tape it to your monitor.

✅ Weekly active users growing >10 % for 4 weeks
✅ Three video testimonials calling you life-saving
✅ One paid pilot or three signed LOIs ≥ $5 k MRR
✅ Waitlist >1 000 targeted emails with referral loop
✅ Seven product updates shipped in 30 days
✅ Two-minute live demo that never crashes
✅ One tier-1 press mention or accelerator acceptance
✅ All claims verifiable (screenshots, Stripe payouts, signed docs)

FAQ – The Questions Investors Always Sneak In

Q1: We’re pre-product. Is a waitlist enough? Yes—if it’s growing fast and the emails are targeted (not random giveaway entries). Show cohort retention from waitlist to beta signup.

Q2: Can I count friends-and-family as users? Only if they fit your ICP and pay real money. Otherwise it’s noise.

Q3: What if we pivot next week? Traction is learning velocity. Show how each experiment informed the pivot—that’s still de-risking.

Q4: How much revenue do I really need?$1–$10 k MRR is gold at pre-seed. Below that, show a believable path to 10× in six months.

Final Pep Talk

Traction at pre-seed isn’t about faking it until you make it. It’s about creative proof that the riskiest assumptions in your business are shrinking every week. Pick two traction plays, execute like crazy, and document everything.

And if you need a 90-second launch video that turns all this momentum into a funding stampede, Flowjam has your back—just ask the 70+ YC startups we’ve already helped.

Now go build something strangers can’t shut up about.