The FFC Index 2024 — the first real benchmark of how first-time founders actually spend their first dollars, drawn from 1,840 seed-stage companies.
Across 18 months of cohort data and one consolidated methodology, this is the most-cited reference on first-time founder burn we have ever published. Read the findings below; the full PDF is free at the bottom of the page.
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METHODOLOGY · v1.2
What we measured, who was in the sample, and over what window.
The FFC Index 2024 is built from one consolidated dataset of 1,840 seed-stage companies that raised between January 2022 and December 2023, surveyed across an 18-month cohort window. Every figure on this page is reproducible from the methodology appendix in the PDF — there is no rounding, no cherry-picking, and no "adjusted" subset.
Sample includes US-headquartered seed-stage companies between $250K and $3M raised, across 14 sectors. Founders self-reported via a structured intake; 11% of figures were cross-validated against publicly filed IRS Form D data.
DATASET SIZE
1,840
Seed-stage companies surveyed across an 18-month cohort window (Jan 2022 – Dec 2023).
MEDIAN MONTHLY BURN
$62,400
Median gross burn across all 1,840 companies at the 6-month mark post-close.
COHORT WINDOW
18 mo
Tracking window from first dollar raised through month 18 — covering the messy first runway.
RESPONSE RATE
94%
Quarterly retention across the cohort — the highest in our four years of founder surveys.
THE FOUR FINDINGS
What 1,840 founders actually did with their first dollars.
Four headline claims, each one a chapter. Footnotes are inline so you can read straight through.
I.
Median burn is lower than the Twitter consensus — and far less variable than you'd expect.
Across the full 1,840-company dataset, median gross burn at month 6 lands at $62,400 per month — meaningfully below the $80–$120K figure that floats around founder Twitter. More importantly, the interquartile range is tight: middle 50% of companies are spending between $48K and $79K monthly, suggesting that the "wild variance" story is mostly survivorship of a thin tail of outliers.1
The narrative implication: most first-time founders spend predictably. The companies that blow up don't do so because of a mystery expense line — they do so because they ran a 14-month plan on a 10-month runway, with no scenario margin built in.2
II.
Three spend categories eat 71% of the first 18 months — and the order is not what founders expect.
Headcount, software & infrastructure, and outsourced go-to-market (contract sales, paid acquisition, fractional marketers) collectively account for 71.3% of gross burn across the cohort. Founders consistently over-allocate to "product" and under-allocate to "GTM experimentation" in their first 18 months — the median company spends 11% of burn on customer acquisition but later cites it as the constraint that killed them.3
The practical rule of thumb that emerges: if your GTM line is below 15% of burn by month 9, you are almost certainly under-investing — not "being disciplined."
III.
Funded founders burn 2.3x more than bootstrapped peers — and convert that spend into revenue at a worse rate.
The 1,192 companies that raised a priced seed round spend a median of $71,200/month at the 6-month mark; the 648 bootstrapped or pre-revenue peers spend $31,400/month. The funded cohort generates 2.1x the revenue of the bootstrapped cohort at month 12 — meaning they spend 2.3x more to generate 2.1x more, a net-negative efficiency ratio.4
This is not an argument against raising — it is an argument against treating the raise as a substitute for unit economics. The funded cohort closes the gap by month 18, but only the top quartile.
IV.
The "second fundraise moment" arrives at month 9.5 — and 61% of founders miss it.
We tracked the exact moment each cohort company began serious conversations with their next-round lead investor. The median "second fundraise moment" lands at 9.5 months after first close — not 12, not 18, not when "the data is ready." 61% of founders in the cohort either started too late (median 13.2 months) or skipped the warm-up entirely.5
The contrarian finding: the most reliable predictor of a clean Series A is not traction in the abstract — it is the founder starting investor conversations before they need the money. The companies that did this closed their Series A at 3.4x higher median valuation than the late starters.
CREDITED BY
Where the FFC Index 2024 has been cited.
Forbes 30 Under 30 Finance · 2024
"The FFC Index is the first dataset that takes first-time founder burn seriously as a measurable phenomenon, not a vibe."
The Hustle · "Best New Newsletter for Operators"
"FreshmanFund treats founder finance like an editorial beat, not a course funnel. The Index is the proof."
SaaStr Annual 2024 · Mainstage
"The most useful 22 minutes on early-stage capital strategy we've put on a SaaStr stage in three years."
"Indexed, shared in the partner Slack, and re-quoted in at least four office hours a week since the drop."
FREE · NO EMAIL REQUIRED · 64 PAGES
Download the FFC Index 2024 methodology.
The full PDF includes the 1,840-company dataset, burn-rate tables by sector, the founder-cohort definitions, the response-rate methodology, and the cross-validation appendix against IRS Form D filings. Free, no email required to download.
