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Aurelius · Work & Leadership
Knowledge + Guidance

Everyone talks about seed rounds and VCs—how does this work?

You sit in meetings and nod. Everyone else seems to know what a term sheet is, what dilution means, what a cap table does. You assume someone on your team understands it. Maybe no one does. This is not a knowledge gap you should feel ashamed of. It is a language, invented recently, guarded by people who benefit from your confusion. The words are not hard. They are just new to you. Choose to learn them the way you learned anything else—one at a time, out loud, with the people beside you. Stop waiting to feel ready before you ask the plain question. You and your team can decide right now who learns what, by when. That is the whole task.

◆ How this problem reads on the two dials
GuidanceKnowledge
Coaching
More to learn
1:1 with AureliusWith others (a Pod)
Some one-to-one
Practise with peers
The core obstacle is unfamiliar vocabulary and mechanics, so teaching comes first, with coaching to get the team actually using it together.
How the two dials adapt to you →
What’s really going on

A seed round is simple: someone gives you money now, and takes a piece of your company for it. A VC does this across many companies, expecting most to fail. The confusion is not yours—it is manufactured. Learn five words at a time, with your team, and the fog clears fast.

🔒 What you’ll build togetherUnlock by starting
A moveList every term you've nodded along to without understanding. Write it down, as a team, today.
A moveAssign one term per person. Each of you learns one piece and teaches it back to the group this week.
A moveBefore you read a single term sheet, calculate together what percentage of the company you'd give up and what you'd get for it.
A moveFind one founder who has raised money and ask them to walk you through their last deal, line by line.
A moveDecide as a team what you actually need the money for before you chase a round at all.
PractiseTerm Sheet Walkthrough · a Pod of 4 · 30 min

What changes unlock by starting

  • Your team can read a basic term sheet without flinching.
  • You can explain a seed round in plain words to someone outside your industry.
  • You know which three questions to ask any investor before you sign anything.
  • No one on your team is pretending to understand something they don't.

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One object, two jobs: a public answer to a real problem, and — the moment you start the chat — Aurelius’s live plan for your version of it.