Hyrax Marketing Budget
Hyrax Marketing Budget
| Engineering and product | 7 FTEs | $2.0M | |
| + | GTM | 1 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, years | 2 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.
| Company | Seed | Seed investor | Seed date | Raised since | Where they are now |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Clay | $2.5M | First Round Capital | 2021 | $202M | $150M ARR |
| PostHog | $3.0M | Y Combinator | Apr 2020 | $182M | $57.5M ARR |
| Factory | $5M | Sequoia and Lux | Nov 2023 | $220M | $60M ARR |
| Cursor | $8M | OpenAI Startup Fund | Oct 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.
| Marketing as a share of the round | 15% 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 |
| Paid media, high intent | 30–40% |
| Content, docs and SEO | 20–25% |
| Team and agency | 15–20% |
| Events, out of home, influencers | 10–15% |
| Measurement and attribution | 10–15% |
| First hire | One broad marketer who can still do the work themselves. Not a specialist |
| Not yet | No sales rep. Content and community are the pipeline until team upgrades appear |
| Contracted | Paid media, video, design, motion. The marketer directs them |
| Activation event defined and tracked | required |
| Free to paid, unaided | above 2% |
| Free to paid, worked by a person | above 8% |
| Team upgrades tracked separately | required |
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.
| Capability | Blueprint | Year one | Share | Year two | What it is |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Paid media, high intent | 30–40% | $500K | 32% | 30% | Google, Reddit, X, LinkedIn and seven more |
| Content, docs and SEO | 20–25% | $340K | 22% | 25% | Technical articles, guides, comparison pages |
| Team and agency | 15–20% | $280K | 18% | 20% | One marketer, plus contractors |
| Events, out of home, influencers | 10–15% | $250K | 16% | 12% | Conferences, developer creators, out of home |
| Measurement and attribution | 10–15% | $190K | 12% | 13% | Source tagging, PostHog, Synter, experiments |
| Total | 100% | $1.56M | 100% | $2.25M to $3.75M | Year 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.
| Case | Free to paid | Paying companies | ARR |
|---|---|---|---|
| Bear | 3% | 806 | $4.6M |
| Base | 4% | 1,388 | $7.9M |
| Bull | 6% | 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.
| Signups a day, measured | 27 |
| Cost per signup, measured | $34 |
| Free to paid, measured | not yet tracked |
| 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.
| Q1, September to November | $316K |
| Q2, December to February | $364K |
| Q3, March to May | $415K |
| Q4, June to August | $464K |
| Year one | $1.56M |
Start in September. Signing an agency takes six to twelve weeks and conference booths sell first come.
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.