Hyrax

Hyrax Marketing Budget

Date
September 2026
Prepared by
Tristan Benozer
Go-to-Market

Hyrax Is Already Funded Like a $10M Seed Company

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Engineering and product7 FTEs$2.0M
+GTM1 FTE + 4 PTE$1.0M to $2.0M
=Total salary and benefits$3.0M to $4.0M
+Total opex$0.75M to $1.0M
=Annual cash burn$3.75M to $5.0M
×Runway, years2 to 2.5
=Implied round size$7.5M to $12.5M

R&D spend from the Hyrax Budget Review, 4 September 2026: engineering and product at 7 full-time people costing above $2M a year, plus GTM at 1 full-time and 4 part-time, totalling $3M to $4M. Total opex is non-salary operating cost at 25% of payroll. Runway of 24 to 30 months is a standard round-sizing assumption. For scale, First Round Capital writes an average first cheque of $3.5M and goes up to $20M, per firstround.com.

The Seed Stage Operating Model

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CompanySeedSeed investorSeed dateRaised sinceWhere they are now
Clay$2.5MFirst Round Capital2021$202M$150M ARR
PostHog$3.0MY CombinatorApr 2020$182M$57.5M ARR
Factory$5MSequoia and LuxNov 2023$220M$60M ARR
Cursor$8MOpenAI Startup FundOct 2023$3.3B$4.0B ARR

Clay: $2.5M seed led by First Round Capital in 2021, $150M ARR May 2026, $202M raised, per Sacra. PostHog: YC W20, $3.025M seed April 2020 led by YC Continuity, $57.5M ARR February 2026, per Sacra. Factory: $5M seed November 2023 led by Sequoia and Lux, $220M raised, $60M ARR March 2026, per Factory funding record. Cursor: $8M seed October 2023 from the OpenAI Startup Fund, $4B ARR 2026, per SaaStr.com/companies/glow-security/funding-rounds/series-a-2026-07">Seedtable.securityweek.com/oak-emerges-from-stealth-mode-with-60-million-in-funding/">SecurityWeek. Third-party estimates, unaudited, collected 4 September 2026.

A $10M Company Spends $1.25M a Year on Marketing

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How much they spend

Marketing as a share of the round15% to 25%
On a $7.5M round over 24 months$0.56M a year
On a $12.5M round over 30 months$1.25M a year

Where it goes

Paid media, high intent30–40%
Content, docs and SEO20–25%
Team and agency15–20%
Events, out of home, influencers10–15%
Measurement and attribution10–15%

Who they hire

First hireOne broad marketer who can still do the work themselves. Not a specialist
Not yetNo sales rep. Content and community are the pipeline until team upgrades appear
ContractedPaid media, video, design, motion. The marketer directs them

What they measure before they scale

Activation event defined and trackedrequired
Free to paid, unaidedabove 2%
Free to paid, worked by a personabove 8%
Team upgrades tracked separatelyrequired

Hiring guidance from First Round Review, The Playbook for Hiring the Right Marketer at the Right Time, Maya Spivak, former marketing lead at Segment and Wealthfront: hire a broad marketer who will do the work themselves for the first few quarters, and note that a growth marketer disseminates material rather than building it. PLG hiring sequence and readiness thresholds from Index Ventures and SignalFire operator guidance. Free-to-paid benchmarks from ProductLed's survey of 600+ B2B SaaS companies: 9% average, roughly 3x that where a person works the qualified accounts, and activation tracked by only 34% of companies. Allocation bands cross-checked against Scalix and Directive.

The Hyrax Blueprint

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CapabilityBlueprintYear oneShareYear twoWhat it is
Paid media, high intent30–40%$500K32%30%Google, Reddit, X, LinkedIn and seven more
Content, docs and SEO20–25%$340K22%25%Technical articles, guides, comparison pages
Team and agency15–20%$280K18%20%One marketer, plus contractors
Events, out of home, influencers10–15%$250K16%12%Conferences, developer creators, out of home
Measurement and attribution10–15%$190K12%13%Source tagging, PostHog, Synter, experiments
Total100%$1.56M100%$2.25M to $3.75MYear two comes back for approval

$1.56M sits above the $1.25M top of the seed band because our committed R&D spend sits at the top of the range that band is drawn from. Events and out of home run one point above the blueprint at 16% rather than 10 to 15%, which is a deliberate choice: conference booths for GitHub Universe, LDX3 and KubeCon are the fastest way to reach engineering leaders while we have no word of mouth. Every other line sits inside the band. Year two is the Series A band, 15% to 25% of a $30M round across 24 months. It comes back for approval once year one has produced evidence.

Projected Outcomes

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What year one produces

CaseFree to paidPaying companiesARR
Bear3%806$4.6M
Base4%1,388$7.9M
Bull6%2,082$11.8M

Published average free to paid is 9%. We model 3% to 6%. Traffic is the same in all three cases. Conversion is what moves.

Where we are today

Signups a day, measured27
Cost per signup, measured$34
Free to paid, measurednot yet tracked

The outliers, well outside the range

Cursor$4.0B ARR
Cognition$492M ARR
Factory$60M ARR

Outlier growth happened where the product and the distribution reinforced each other. It is not what more media spend produces on its own.

All three cases run the same 95% monthly retention, the same seat ramp from 8 to 20 per company, and $30 a seat. None of those is measured yet. Free-to-paid average of 9% from ProductLed's 600+ company survey. Signups a day is the average of 31 August to 2 September from PostHog project 436309. Cost per signup is measured on the rebuilt ad account. Cursor $4B ARR against a $60B acquisition price, Cognition $492M, Factory $60M at roughly 6x growth since January 2026. All third-party estimates, unaudited, collected 4 September 2026.

$1.56M Is the Amount Needed to Execute

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Quarterly spend

Q1, September to November$316K
Q2, December to February$364K
Q3, March to May$415K
Q4, June to August$464K
Year one$1.56M

Timing

Start in September. Signing an agency takes six to twelve weeks and conference booths sell first come.

If the range is not enough

Treated as a Series A that raised $30M, the budget starts at $2.25M and the range moves up with it.

Quarterly figures ramp on the same schedule as the year one plan on slide 3. Series A band is 15% to 25% of a $30M round across 24 months.