How much to raise is an intriguing question, especially if you're a first timer.

Mark Suster says to raise $100-250k in that case, http://www.bothsidesofthetable.com/2009/08/14/angel-funding-...

And Joshua Schachter (joshu on here) said that companies raising less than 500k are making a huge mistake (http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1356345)

Wonder what people on HN who have raised an angel round recently think?

"Frankly, what a lot of startups should do is spend the money not on another developer to build more stuff, but on a kick ass product manager to eliminate features (especially the ones that get requested after you launch) and focus the offering."

Has anyone EVER worked with a product manager that eliminated features? I feel like every conversation with every product manager I have has gone like this.

PM: "We want to do A and B by the end of Q2."

Me: "Well they're both 8 week projects so which do you want first?"

PM: "It's not possible to do both?"

Of course it goes without saying that the specific number is very location dependent - so 500k in the valley won't take you very far, but elsewhere it can last you for years.

That being said, it seems a good target to shoot for is to always have at least 12 months of burn in the bank. If you've got much less than that, you're in very dangerous territory since you don't have enough time to pivot in case your current course doesn't work out.

As much as it's a very good (and empirically accurate) argument that too much money leads to bloat, I think raising less money is not the optimal solution. A better approach might just be discipline - take the money if it's available, and keep spending in check.