Pre-seed capital memo · May 2026
Raising to prove retention before scale.
Micro is building an AI-powered learning system for busy adults: personalized paths, audio-first lessons, quizzes, and a habit loop designed around measurable retention.
Interested investors can write to:
jonas@micro-learn.ai
1. The market pain is not content access.
Busy professionals already have podcasts, YouTube, newsletters, and courses. The missing layer is sequencing, recall, and consistency.
2. Micro turns passive learning into a habit loop.
Users get a personalized roadmap, short audio lessons, quick quizzes, flashcards, and visible progress.
3. The core question is retention.
Every euro in the Growth & Acquisition line is gated behind evidence that users who arrive actually stay, learn, and eventually pay.
4. Founders take minimum, by design.
Both founders earn about €3,580 per month gross, roughly €2,500 net in Antwerp. No sustainability cushion. No overflow budget. Capital is redirected into product, growth, infrastructure, and runway protection.
Capital allocation
Every euro has a job. Every line has a kill switch.
The new split removes founder comfort padding, separates setup and equipment, increases infrastructure and tools, and raises the emergency buffer to €90K for stronger runway protection.
€650K
Total pre-seed allocation
Founder salaries
€86K13.2%
Team: 2 confirmed hires
€112K17.2%
Growth & acquisition
€87K13.4%
Retention & engagement
€65K10.0%
Content infrastructure
€72K11.1%
Setup & equipment
€20K3.1%
Infrastructure & tools
€98K15.1%
Legal & admin
€20K3.1%
Emergency buffer
€90K13.8%
Hiring roadmap
Two confirmed hires. Both identified, vetted, and ready to start.
The engineer multiplies Luigi’s product capacity. The content creator builds the learning library and distribution layer. No speculative headcount.
Retention-first gating
Growth spend stays locked until behavior proves it should unlock.
If the thresholds are not met by Month 4, growth spend stays at baseline: organic plus minimal paid testing only. The money does not disappear. It extends runway.
>30%
D7 retention, rolling 4-week average
>15%
D30 retention, rolling 8-week average
>2.5x
Sessions per week per active user
>60%
Lesson completion rate, rolling 4-week average
Month 1
Tranche 1 · Foundation · €320K
Raise closes. Covers salaries, tools, content, legal, and initial operations.
Month 4-5
Tranche 2 · Growth Unlock · €170K
Only unlocks if D7 retention is above 30%, lesson completion is above 60%, and active users reach at least 500.
Month 6
Tranche 2.5 · Content Scale-Up
Reallocation within Tranche 2 only if content engagement exceeds 40%, library utilization exceeds 3 paths per user, and organic traffic grows month-over-month for 8+ weeks.
Month 8-10
Tranche 3 · Scale Prep · €70K
Only unlocks if D30 retention exceeds 15%, CVR exceeds 3%, unit economics trend positively, and blended CAC is stable or declining for 6+ weeks.
Reserve
Emergency Reserve · €90K
Board-level decision only. Triggered by runway below 4 months or a critical pivot condition.
CAC scenarios
We are not pretending every channel will work.
The model separates optimistic, base, and stress cases. Paid acquisition is a controlled experiment, not a religion.
Content distribution compounds faster than expected. Cohort stacking drives subscriber growth as early retained users accumulate alongside newer cohorts. Even here, burn does not automatically increase.
Healthy but not exceptional. Continue on plan, improve retention and conversion, and avoid premature acceleration.
Paid acquisition is inefficient. Cut paid spend by 30% immediately and redirect budget to retention, referrals, and owned channels.
Break-even math
The goal is trajectory, not pretending break-even is guaranteed.
Break-even within the raise period is possible, but not expected. The goal is to demonstrate a clear path to break-even.
Milestone scorecard
What investors should judge us on.
Revenue matters. Retention quality matters more. A lower MRR with strong learning behavior is more fundable than noisy revenue with weak retention.
| Metric | Month 6 target | Month 12 target | Why it matters |
|---|---|---|---|
| D7 retention | >35% | >40% | Shows whether the first experience creates repeat behavior. |
| D30 retention | >18% | >22% | Validates habit formation beyond curiosity. |
| Weekly sessions | >3.0 / active user | Tracked weekly | Shows whether Micro becomes a recurring loop. |
| Lesson completion | >65% | Tracked weekly | Proves the lesson format is working. |
| NPS | >40 | Tracked monthly | Shows whether users are satisfied enough to recommend Micro. |
| Total registered users | 8,000 | 50,000 | Shows top-of-funnel progress without pretending volume alone is enough. |
| Monthly active users | 3,000 | Tracked monthly | Connects acquisition to actual usage. |
| Paid subscribers | 150 | 1,000 | Validates paid willingness without over-optimizing early revenue. |
| MRR | ~€5,700 | ~€38,000 | Shows a credible path toward subscription monetization. |
| LTV:CAC | Early signal | >8:1 target | Determines whether scaling paid acquisition is rational. |
Distribution risk
We are building on platforms we do not control. We are not naive about it.
TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube can change reach overnight. The antidote is owning the user relationship through email, push, community, SEO, and referrals.
Risk control
The page most founders hide. We put it in the open.
The plan assumes things will break. The system is designed to detect early, protect runway, and move spend toward the bottleneck.
CAC rises above €12
Pause underperforming paid channels. Shift to organic, referral, and partnerships. Budget impact: -30% growth, +15% to retention and content.
D7 drops below 25%
Pause all paid acquisition. Full team focus moves to onboarding and first-session value. Budget impact: -50% growth, +50% retention.
Organic reach drops 40%+
Accelerate owned channel investment, increase email and community cadence, and test LinkedIn or YouTube Shorts.
Founder burnout appears
Hire freelance help from the Emergency Buffer if needed. Reduce scope, not decision quality.
Runway drops below 4 months
Freeze non-essential spend, reduce founder salaries further, pause all paid acquisition, and activate the €90K emergency buffer.
Team model
Small team. Clear bottlenecks. No headcount fantasy.
Jonas and Luigi are single points of failure for non-engineering and engineering respectively. The budget protects execution by funding the exact two roles that remove the biggest bottlenecks.
Jonas
Founder. Product vision, learning science application, market positioning, fundraising, legal, growth, and founder-led trust distribution.
Luigi
Technical cofounder. Mobile, full-stack engineering, product execution, and infrastructure.
Next two hires
Engineer in Month 1 and content creator in Month 2. Both are identified, vetted, and ready to start.
Contact
Interested in the round?
Copy the email address below and write to us directly. Keep it simple: who you are, what kind of investor you are, and whether you want to discuss the pre-seed round.
jonas@micro-learn.ai
Important legal notice:
This webpage is provided for general informational purposes only and does not constitute an offer to sell, a solicitation of an offer to buy, investment advice, financial advice, or legal advice. Any potential investment in Micro would be made only through definitive legal documentation and after appropriate investor qualification, diligence, and compliance review. No representation is made that any projected milestones, financial outcomes, retention targets, conversion rates, user targets, or fundraising outcomes will be achieved. Startup investing is high risk and may result in loss of capital. Prospective investors should rely only on formal transaction documents and their own professional advisers.