Founder Newsletter Series.

Building a startup is a strange contradiction. It often feels like eating glass while convincing yourself you are fine, then laughing in the sunlight because you chose this path and you would choose it again. There is nothing balanced about it. The pressure compounds, the market shifts, capital tightens, expectations rise and the rules change faster than anyone admits.

Each day the landscape becomes more complex. Institutional capital is more disciplined, investors are more selective and founders are expected to understand not only their product and customers but their capital structure, economics and governance with equal depth. The gap between ambition and structural readiness widens quietly.

Moonshot must move with that reality. This series exists because the environment is evolving, we are evolving with it and trying our best to keep up and founders deserve clarity that evolves with it. Here I unpack some of my thoughts and experiences around what investor readiness actually means, what venture capital standards look like in practice and where structural gaps tend to hide.

I understood a long time ago that every one of us building a startup is slightly unreasonable for even attempting this. Building companies is not rational behaviour. But it is also the unreasonable ones who move markets, build infrastructure and change how the world works, one disciplined step at a time.

I hope you enjoy the read. Take whatever resonates with you and leave the rest behind. Whatever you do, keep building, keep moving forward, we are all here cheering you on.

— Jill Godden
Founder, Moonshot