Burn / How Real The Pain Is

Startups don’t burn cash in a vacuum - they burn in proportion to how “real” the pain is.

In early markets, the pain might be unperceived - so high burn goes into education and evangelism. In developing markets, the pain is acknowledged but not yet urgent - burn is spent pushing through inertia. In mature markets, the pain is known and accepted - and burn shifts toward differentiation and scale.

But here’s the nuance: even within the same market stage, burn levels can vary dramatically. An infrastructure cybersecurity startup may burn $30M before real traction, while a dev tools company might get there with $15M.

Why?

Because burn is not just about market maturity - it reflects market structure. Who the buyer is. How fragmented the adoption path is. How much trust needs to be built - and how fast.

In cyber, buyers are centralized, conservative, and high-stakes. Building trust takes time, certifications, and long sales cycles - which means more burn, but also stickier contracts and deeper moats. In dev tools, adoption is often bottom-up, driven by community and product quality - faster, cheaper, but often with smaller initial deal sizes.

Here’s the key insight: burn ≠ waste.

 High burn in cyber isn't bad - it’s the price of credibility.

 Low burn in dev tools isn’t always good - it might reflect limited upside.

As investors, the right question isn’t how much are they burning? It’s why?

 And does the burn match the terrain they’re trying to cross?