Imagine telling a tech founder in 2020 that before they can raise their first institutional round, they should have a built prototype, product usage, distribution experiments and some initial revenue.

Most founders would’ve laughed nervously and assumed you’re being unreasonable or delusional.

But that’s already what many investors expect today. Investors expect a certain level of traction before they get comfortable writing an early check. Pre-seed hasn’t disappeared, but its purpose and qualifications are now dramatically different.

Five years ago doesn’t seem like a long time. But if you’re a startup founder, this period can feel like an eternity. Within that phase the market has shifted in multiple directions at once, causing chaos and uncertainty, but it has also given rise to a new kind of entrepreneur: the Lean Founder. These are founders using AI, automation and readily available technology to accomplish dramatically more with less capital, fewer people and less time. That’s already a big chunk of the current founder population and has emerged with force over the past 24 months.

Back in 2018, the tech startup playbook was quite simple. If you were a founder with an impressive education, some relevant work or startup experience and an idea that made a ton of sense on paper, one that solved a problem everyone thought could disrupt an industry, there was a good chance you could find a pre-seed investor excited to invest in you.

For years, pre-seed capital existed only because startups were........

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