Bean Plant

Venture capital borrowed its terminology from botany. 'Seed funding' isn't a metaphor—it's a precise description of how plants invest stored capital before they can generate revenue.

A bean seed's cotyledons are packed with starch, protein, and lipids—the plant's pre-revenue capital reserves. When germination begins, the embryo burns through these reserves to build infrastructure (roots) before it can generate returns (photosynthesis). The seed has approximately 7-10 days of runway before the cotyledons are exhausted. If the plant hasn't established root access to water and minerals by then, it dies.

The sequencing is deliberate. Watch a bean seed germinate: the radicle (embryonic root) emerges within 24-48 hours of water uptake. The shoot doesn't appear for another 3-5 days—a 72-hour head start for infrastructure. This isn't random. The moment the shoot breaks surface and opens leaves, it starts losing water through transpiration. If root capacity doesn't exceed shoot demands, the plant can't maintain water balance. Infrastructure must precede operations.

Startups follow the same logic. Seed funding buys runway—time to build infrastructure before revenue arrives. The typical seed round of $500,000-$2 million provides 12-18 months of runway. Like the bean, the startup burns through reserves building the foundation (product, team, initial customers) that will eventually generate sustainable returns. If the company hasn't achieved 'photosynthesis'—recurring revenue or clear path to the next funding round—before the runway expires, it dies.

The root-first strategy also explains why premature scaling kills startups. A bean that grew shoots before roots would transpire water faster than it could absorb, wilting within hours. Companies that scale sales and marketing before establishing product-market fit and operational infrastructure face the same fate: demand exceeds capacity, and the system collapses under its own growth.

The cotyledons eventually shrivel and fall off—the bean no longer needs seed capital once photosynthesis is self-sustaining. The best outcome for any investor is the same: the company outgrows its need for the original capital. The worst outcome is burning through reserves without ever reaching sustainability. The bean's math is simple: use stored energy to build the infrastructure required to capture more energy than you consume. Everything else is commentary.