Pre-seed, seed, Series A: the whole truth from a VC | Sergey Yudin
No Bullsh!t, September 17, 2025, 58 min, 2,828 views. The guest is Sergey Yudin, founder and managing partner of a venture fund in the United Kingdom whose portfolio and pipeline include well-known technology companies and joint deals with a top-tier fund.
| Published | |
|---|---|
| Length | 58 min |
| Views on YouTube | 2,828 |
| Language of the episode | Russian |
| Where to watch and listen | YouTube, Spotify, Telegram |
Date, length and view count according to data from the episode page on YouTube, as of the page update date shown in the footer.
In short
Before the fund he spent five years building startups, including a medical AI project for analysing scans, and raised money himself more than once. He goes through three of his own failures, including confusing a problem with market demand in a startup for coworking spaces, and explains why tunnel focus on one hypothesis beats spreading across several. The main part of the episode dissects the myths of fundraising: pitch decks and financial models are overrated, venture money is not for everyone, and a startup should be built around sales rather than product. He lays out the logic of the pre-seed, seed and Series A stages and the importance of a why-now narrative.
Key ideas
- Roughly one percent of those who take on a startup make it work, and the outcome depends heavily on market, competitors and luck rather than only on the founder's effort.
- Having a problem does not guarantee willingness to pay for it: the problem has to be sharp and, above all, frequent, and the best signal of demand is that people are already looking for a solution.
- Pitch decks and five-year financial models are badly overrated at pre-seed: the idea, a strong team and an understanding of the market matter more.
- Venture money is not for everyone: it is a game with a tiny chance of earning a great deal and heavy obligations to the fund, and for many businesses it is simply the wrong instrument.
- A startup should be built around sales rather than product: being able to earn money before the product is finished matters more than the product itself.
- The stages work differently: pre-seed sells the idea and the storytelling, seed sells first local wins and the team's secret sauce, and from Series A onwards financial engineering and unit economics decide.
The full transcript
The episode is recorded in Russian, and the full transcript of the conversation is on the Russian page of this episode. English and Spanish subtitles for the strongest episodes are rolling out on YouTube in waves.
Open the transcript