What reveals the “VC-Dry Q1” of Alex Lebrun
Alex Lebrun, CEO of Nabla, voluntarily passed the first quarter of 2025 without soliciting or meeting a single investor. No pitch, no introduction, no exchange with a fund. A “sober” quarter, without VC. An assumed decision which he said has transformed his operational management, he explains in a post on Linked in.
Decoring the piloting produced of capital logic
This strategic choice has highlighted a phenomenon rarely explained: the attention paid to investors modifies the nature of the decisions taken on a daily basis. By temporarily cutting this channel, Lebrun indicates that it has rediscovered the signals that have been inaudible so far: customer feedback, unpsed needs, product friction.
He claims to have oriented all of his decisions to users, without trying to justify them by a logic of financial storytelling. Result: a reinforced alignment with the reality on the ground, and a measurable improvement in customer satisfaction as in recurring income.
Fundraising as background noise
This experience raises a simple question: does permanent fundraising act as a structural distraction? The exercise of the pitch requires a simplified, sometimes distorted vision of the market. The temptation to format the strategy to correspond to the implicit expectations of investors can remove the founder from his product intuition.
Alex Lebrun describes a short-circuit effect: a Go-to-Market strategy chosen not for its effectiveness but for its ability to look good on a “differentiation” slide. A narrative bias that penalizes strategic clarity.
Towards a voluntary sobriety in the VC relationship?
The approach questions the temporality of the levees. In an environment where the pressure to “remain visible” vis-à-vis funds is constant, should we institutionalize periods of sobriety? Create sequences where the manager cuts external signals to refocus on the product, vision, execution?
Alex Lebrun’s “VC-Dry Q1” is not a withdrawal. It is a strategy. It is based on a simple hypothesis: any interaction influences perception. Temporarily withdrawing from the investor game makes it possible to restore a direct link with Business reality, even if it is not to feed the FOMO of the latter.
