OLD SCRIPT DETECTED
“They raised $20M for a worse product”
Try this response:
“Their $20M is fuel they now have to burn on a schedule. My number is small, mine, and actual revenue.”SEE THE PRACTICE
Build a response for this thought—and one move to prove it.
THE THOUGHT
“They raised $20M for a worse product”
YOUR RECORDED RESPONSE
“Their $20M is fuel they now have to burn on a schedule. My number is small, mine, and actual revenue.”
ONE PRIVATE MOVE
Open a note or text file, write the competitor’s name and your current MRR on separate lines, then close it. No edits, no sending, just the visible difference between their funding and your number.
The round that lands before lunch
The alert beside your coffee
You’re halfway through a lukewarm coffee, skimming a release note draft, when the fundraising announcement lands in your feed. Same familiar logo. Bigger headline. The kind of raise that turns every comment into a performance review. Before you even read the details, the thought arrives whole: They raised $20M for a worse product.
The afternoon turns into comparison math
After that, your own work gets flatter. A customer email sits open while you compare feature lists, pricing pages, and the polish on their deck. Your revenue stops feeling like revenue and starts feeling like a stain. You avoid the founder lunch invite, then spend the evening rereading the announcement, as if the extra glance will reveal the mistake in the market.
Your number, written where it can’t perform
Print your current MRR, or write it on a scrap of paper. Then add one short note under it: what this number actually is, in plain terms. Keep it private. The point is not to feel impressed; it is to see the difference between a funded story and the revenue you can verify.
TRACE · 01/04
How this script runs you
- A competitor’s funding post can swallow the rest of your workday, even when nothing about your product changed.
- You start treating your own revenue like an embarrassing answer, and you reach for growth language instead of the number.
- Founder dinners become something to skip because the raise question feels like a trap you’ll be compared inside.
SOURCE_LOCATED · 02/04
The hidden rule underneath
The Status Ledger
If a competitor can raise more money for something you think is weaker, then their business must rank above yours, and your revenue only matters if it can outshout their announcement. The raise gets treated like proof, while your actual number gets downgraded to background noise.
FORGING_REPLACEMENT · 03/04
Replacement lines (record these)
- Their $20M is fuel they now have to burn on a schedule. My number is small, mine, and actual revenue.
- A raise is a bet someone placed, not a medal someone earned. I don’t rank myself by other people’s bets.
- I can say the MRR out loud. A number I can say is a number I own.
Generated per person in the app — these are the flavor, not your script. Yours is built from your exact words.
INSTALL · 04/04
The protocol, on one card
When I think
“They raised $20M for a worse product”
I say
“Their $20M is fuel they now have to burn on a schedule. My number is small, mine, and actual revenue.”
Then I do one thing
Open a note or text file, write the competitor’s name and your current MRR on separate lines, then close it. No edits, no sending, just the visible difference between their funding and your number.
STATUS: READY_TO_INSTALL
Wipe this thought4 minutes. Your voice. Free.
The wipe protocol
- Write the thought exactly as it plays: "They raised $20M for a worse product". Word for word — the wipe targets the sentence, not the vibe.
- Trace the rule and the avoided action. What does this thought conveniently excuse you from doing?
- Record the replacement lines below in your own voice. Speak like you mean it — no recording, no install.
- Run the loop: play it every morning and night, log one proof action a day for 7 days.
Straight answers
Why does their raise feel like they beat me if I still think my product is better?
Because the announcement reads like a public verdict: they got money, so the market must have chosen them. That jump skips over a lot of unknowns. The raise is a bet, not a trophy, and it often says more about timing, storytelling, and investor appetite than product quality.
Shouldn’t I use their funding as proof that I’m behind?
It can be useful data, but not as a ranking system. Their round may buy time, not truth. If you treat every raise as a scorecard, you end up measuring your business by other people’s financing events instead of by revenue, retention, and what customers actually pay for.
What if seeing the amount makes me want to stop looking at my own numbers?
That’s the exact trap this thought builds: if the round feels bigger than your revenue, your number starts disappearing. A better counterweight is to name your MRR plainly, privately, and without commentary. The goal is not celebration; it’s keeping the number visible enough to stay real.
Related old scripts
Related self-checks
Related science
Researchers to explore
Related mechanisms
The research behind this script
- Why Most Venture-Backed Companies Fail — Ghosh, Harvard Business School, 2012
- Survivorship Bias — The Decision Lab, 2021
- The payoff and probability of obtaining venture capital — Todd, 80,000 Hours, 2014