Later-stage investors who disparage seed investing as "spray and pray" don't realize that "pray" can be replaced by "help."
It's an understandable oversight. The later you invest, the less you can, or are expected to, help the company. What people don't get (it was a surprise to me at first) is that things change so much at the seed stage that it's qualitatively different.
Seed investing is so different from series A investing that you have to be a different sort of person to do it well. Jessica and I were well suited to seed investing, but I don't think either of us would make good VCs. You have to be tougher and better at thinking about money.
It might seem that all investing would be about money, and perhaps most is, but seed stage investing is much more about product questions than financial questions. You're just trying to make something people want. Thinking too much about profit margins is premature optimization.
