The Founder Pulse · issue 1
Every call I had from August 1 to October 31, 2026, counted and anonymized. A number only appears here when at least five calls back it, and each one carries its n.
· covers Aug 1 to Oct 31, 2026 · data.json
i went back through every call i had from august 1 to october 31. pre-interviews, tapings, debriefs, sales calls....
980 conversations. 562 different founders once you stop counting the same person three times.
here's what they told me.
only 23% said they were raising right now.
everyone online acts like every founder is out with a deck. most of the ones i talk to never brought a raise up at all. and when it did come up, it was usually live.... 79% of the founders who talked about it were in a round.
the seed founders who named a number were asking for a median of $2.5M. that's the low end of what they said, not the top.
now the surprise.
i score every founder from 0 to 100 on how they talk about momentum. founders in a raise came in at 65. founders who weren't.... 65.
same number. raising doesn't show up in how founders sound. at least not in these calls.
and the part nobody posts about.
when someone told me no, 48% of the time it was timing. only 28% said it was price. (those were people reacting to my own offer, so take it as one seller's view.)
not now isn't no. it's a calendar problem. and i'd rather be the one still around in ninety days.
one more. where i know how a meeting got booked, referrals, podcast invites and events beat cold email 43 to 20. warm still books more than cold.
so here's my question for you....
if most founders never mention a raise, and most buyers aren't saying no, just not yet.... what are you doing this week that the person who says yes in february will remember?
Median founder confidence, 0 to 100
Scored from how each founder described their own momentum. Flat across the quarter.
Each founder is placed in the month of their latest call. Only about one founder in five gave enough of a signal to score.
| Month | Conversations | Founders | Raising | Confidence |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Aug 2026 | 197 n=197 | 95 n=95 | 26 (27%) n=95 | 63.5 n=34 |
| Sep 2026 | 414 n=414 | 251 n=251 | 54 (22%) n=251 | 67.5 n=36 |
| Oct 2026 | 369 n=369 | 216 n=216 | 49 (23%) n=216 | 65 n=34 |
Median confidence was 65 for founders who were raising n=51, 65 for every other scored founder n=53, and 65 for founders who said outright they were not raising n=16.
A comparison, not a cause. The score comes from each founder's own words about momentum.
Of 94 calls where a buyer gave a reason for no n=94, timing came up in 45 (48%) and price in 26 (28%).
These buyers were mostly reacting to my own offer, not to the founders' products.
129 of 562 founders (23%) said they were raising n=562. Of the 163 whose status came up at all, 79% were n=163. 399 founders never said either way n=399, and 34 said plainly they were not raising n=34.
Never said means the call didn't cover it, not that the founder isn't raising.
Of 50 founders who stated a stage n=50, 25 were at seed (50%), 15 at pre-seed (30%) and 8 at series A (16%). The median seed ask was $2.5M n=9.
Asks are recorded at the low end of any stated range. Only 9 seed founders named a number.
Where a call said how a meeting got booked, referrals, podcast invites and events added up to 43 n=43 against 20 for cold email n=20. Referrals alone were 25 n=25 and podcast invites 16 n=16.
Recorded only when stated, so most calls carry no booking path.
20 calls were with fund managers raising their own funds n=20, counted apart from founders.
The source is the conversations I had from August 1 to October 31, 2026: pre-interviews, show tapings, debriefs, sales calls and the rest. Every call is anonymized before anything is counted. No names, no company names and no quotes appear here, ever.
A number is published only when at least five distinct calls back it, and a share needs at least five on both sides of the fraction. The small n beside each number is how many calls or founders sit behind it. A founder seen on several calls counts once. Some calls are excluded for confidentiality. Medians, not means.
The numbers are in /pulse/data.json if you want to cite them.
The Founder Pulse, counted from real calls. Email only, nothing else.