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<div style="display: none; max-height: 0px; overflow: hidden;">Seed funding is back to near-peak levels, but the money is significantly harder to touch. Investors are piling more cash into fewer rounds </div>
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<a href="https://tracking.tldrnewsletter.com/CL0/https:%2F%2Fmetronome.com%2Fquiz%3Futm_campaign=pricing%2520quiz%26utm_medium=newsletter%26utm_source=tldr-founder%26utm_content=/1/0100019b12ac0115-a54fcbed-e713-4769-b5d3-5eb987b6f48d-000000/if5EjLxPS02tgwj8dbsvrrj2IEXcnB6nGKLgdqRIFa0=435"><img src="https://images.tldr.tech/metronome2.png" valign="middle" style="vertical-align: middle !important; height: 100%;" alt="Metronome"></a></td></tr></tbody></table>
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<h1><strong> TLDR Founders <span id="date">2025-12-12</span></strong></h1>
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<strong>Have you chosen the wrong pricing model? (Sponsor)</strong>
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Seat-based, usage-based, or outcome-based: which pricing strategy is right? Most founders pick a model based on what competitors do, not what fits their product. <p></p><p><strong>Metronome</strong> - the monetization platform that helps leaders like <strong>OpenAI</strong>,<strong> Anthropic</strong>, and <strong>NVIDIA</strong> match pricing to value - has a <a href="https://tracking.tldrnewsletter.com/CL0/https:%2F%2Fmetronome.com%2Fquiz%3Futm_campaign=pricing%2520quiz%26utm_medium=newsletter%26utm_source=tldr-founder%26utm_content=/3/0100019b12ac0115-a54fcbed-e713-4769-b5d3-5eb987b6f48d-000000/1sfiQPLG0bmcpiUOy52BbMfQ-EFca8c1HDTyWWFVXA8=435" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank"><span>new self-assessment</span></a> that can tell you whether you're on the right track. <a href="https://tracking.tldrnewsletter.com/CL0/https:%2F%2Fmetronome.com%2Fquiz%3Futm_campaign=pricing%2520quiz%26utm_medium=newsletter%26utm_source=tldr-founder%26utm_content=/4/0100019b12ac0115-a54fcbed-e713-4769-b5d3-5eb987b6f48d-000000/R2--dksKzdgAdhsIcHRrCCB0sGWfTPwmIpTSTyy6CFM=435" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank"><span>Answer these 8 questions</span></a> to discover the pricing strategy that best fits how your customers get value from your product.</p>
<p><a href="https://tracking.tldrnewsletter.com/CL0/https:%2F%2Fmetronome.com%2Fquiz%3Futm_campaign=pricing%2520quiz%26utm_medium=newsletter%26utm_source=tldr-founder%26utm_content=/5/0100019b12ac0115-a54fcbed-e713-4769-b5d3-5eb987b6f48d-000000/0RYAmWNgOuPzBwJ6WgKz75YS9ocQ_G7_L8KlYGfh6LA=435" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank"><span>Find your ideal pricing model >></span></a>
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<div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: 36px;">📈</span></div>
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<h1><strong>Headlines & Trends</strong></h1>
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<a href="https://tracking.tldrnewsletter.com/CL0/https:%2F%2Fspeedrun.substack.com%2Fp%2F8-takeaways-from-cartas-state-of%3Futm_source=tldrfounders/1/0100019b12ac0115-a54fcbed-e713-4769-b5d3-5eb987b6f48d-000000/ObrOnRFnMByxNnFoQLs2TX60YVJV2GfO8wQy7L1Ud_0=435">
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<strong>8 Takeaways from Carta's State of Seed Report (4 minute read)</strong>
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Seed funding is back to near-peak levels, but the money is significantly harder to touch. Investors are piling more cash into fewer rounds, essentially ignoring everything outside of SF and NY. The most telling stat is headcount: the average seed startup has slimmed down from 10 people to just 6, likely because AI is picking up the slack. However, don't let the tools fool you into going it alone: VCs still fund co-founders at double the rate of solo acts, despite the data showing that 25% of those partnerships end in a breakup by year four.
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<a href="https://tracking.tldrnewsletter.com/CL0/https:%2F%2Fwww.notboring.co%2Fp%2Fhardware-is-a-fruit%3Futm_source=tldrfounders/1/0100019b12ac0115-a54fcbed-e713-4769-b5d3-5eb987b6f48d-000000/jBcpDGINQ2Yp3yzDFcnHbtNS836HcBJDFDdytFVGDBQ=435">
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<strong>Hardware Is A Fruit (5 minute read)</strong>
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The feedback loop for physical products is speeding up. We used to assume that building hardware meant long timelines and high costs for every mistake. That dynamic is fading. Modern simulation tools and AI assistants now let engineers iterate on physical designs almost as fast as they write code. The barrier to entry is shifting from manufacturing logistics to pure design capability.
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<div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: 36px;">🧠</span></div>
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<h1><strong>Strategies & Tactics</strong></h1>
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<a href="https://tracking.tldrnewsletter.com/CL0/https:%2F%2Fdebliu.substack.com%2Fp%2Fdriving-extreme-clarity%3Futm_source=tldrfounders/1/0100019b12ac0115-a54fcbed-e713-4769-b5d3-5eb987b6f48d-000000/Np_mX8LufLv6275SZVEMtJUhuzG9rp1SEjoQ8g52fK4=435">
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<strong>Driving Extreme Clarity (4 minute read)</strong>
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At your startup, it's important to recognize that a "messy yes" is often more dangerous than a hard "no." Teams tend to drift into "strategic ambiguity" - nodding along to avoid conflict without actually agreeing on the trade-offs. The fix is to force the friction upfront: make the team stack-rank priorities (no ties allowed) and write down exactly where you disagree.
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<a href="https://tracking.tldrnewsletter.com/CL0/https:%2F%2Fgreylock.com%2Fgreymatter%2Frl-in-real-life-durable-moats%2F%3Futm_source=tldrfounders/1/0100019b12ac0115-a54fcbed-e713-4769-b5d3-5eb987b6f48d-000000/OGGkDDZ5OReo57hYlKl2d40Lt9RdLMs2C4EgfT72RRo=435">
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<strong>RL in Real Life: Durable Moats (15 minute read)</strong>
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<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, Verdana, sans-serif;">
Reinforcement learning (RL) has gone from being a promising path towards general intelligence to a taboo phrase over the past year. It has proved highly effective inside AI labs, but outside of the labs, its use cases remain surprisingly underdeveloped. Most efforts appear to be largely experimental and have yet to scratch the surface of the sophisticated techniques used within the frontier labs. This post looks at the intricacies of building effective RL approaches, assesses current use cases, and discusses what founders should consider when commercializing RL-based systems.
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<div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: 36px;">⚒️</span></div></div>
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<h1><strong>Tools & Resources</strong></h1>
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<strong>Wasting time on CRM data hygiene? Lightfield is the AI-native CRM that does it for you (Sponsor)</strong>
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Salesforce and HubSpot are for big enterprises with RevOps teams. <a href="https://tracking.tldrnewsletter.com/CL0/https:%2F%2Flightfield.app%2F%3Futm_source=newsletter%26utm_medium=paid%26utm_campaign=tldr%26utm_content=secondary_12-12-2025/2/0100019b12ac0115-a54fcbed-e713-4769-b5d3-5eb987b6f48d-000000/derCP-AkqL9D_QSBJVfKoJ2MxUKmqqci4LpX6jwYc7U=435" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank"><span>Lightfield</span></a> — an AI-native CRM with an embedded call recorder — was made for startups. It automatically captures every customer communication so you never have to manually enter data. Never lose context, never miss a follow-up. <a href="https://tracking.tldrnewsletter.com/CL0/https:%2F%2Flightfield.app%2F%3Futm_source=newsletter%26utm_medium=paid%26utm_campaign=tldr%26utm_content=secondary_12-12-2025/3/0100019b12ac0115-a54fcbed-e713-4769-b5d3-5eb987b6f48d-000000/iUKqwwwCFrMumdmJJ3-sNNAKsPGDHBZSIirxYkRuHsk=435" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank"><span>See how it works</span></a>
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<strong>Safebooks AI (Tool)</strong>
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Safebooks is an intelligent automation layer for quote-to-revenue finance operations.
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<strong>Roark (Tool)</strong>
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Roark is a platform to test, monitor, and improve AI voice agents with simulations and call analytics.
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<strong>doola: AI Co-Founder (Tool)</strong>
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doola is an AI assistant that automates back-office tasks for e-commerce entrepreneurs.
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<div style="text-align: center;"><strong><h1>Miscellaneous</h1></strong></div>
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