Charles Hudson, founder and managing partner of Precursor Ventures and a backer of more than 500 early-stage startups, appeared on TechCrunch's Build Mode podcast to outline the most common mistakes founders make when trying to raise money. His central message is that the venture fundraising landscape has shifted dramatically, and founders who rely on old playbooks risk failing to secure funding or, worse, saddling themselves with the wrong investors for the long term.

Hudson warned against chasing high valuations for their own sake, noting that a big round can turn a founder into "a prisoner" of unrealistic expectations, and stressed the importance of choosing cap-table investors carefully. He urged founders to run their own due diligence on prospective backers by speaking to portfolio companies and verifying claims about recruitment and go-to-market support. He also cautioned that not every good business is venture-scale, and that today's investors are benchmarking startups against the fastest-growing AI companies in history — meaning even firms that are doubling or tripling can be judged as merely "good, not great".