Take as little as possible, as late as possible. Money comes with a cost (in terms of equity %, interest and/or liquidation preferences).<p>I suggest you create a simple financial plan. In Excel or Google Sheets, put months along the top, and each line item of expense along the left. Do it on a cash flow basis (i.e. book revenue in the month when you will receive the payment, not when you make the sale).<p>You can then total up each column to see your net cash in or out in the given month.<p>Then think about what could make you need more cash. Need to hire some sales people? Possible delays getting paid by customers? Need to scale up infrastructure before the related revenue will come in?<p>If you want to do this 'properly', all of the numbers in the main body of the table will be formulae, driven by a small set of assumptions (start dates and salaries of key employees, starting # customers, customer acquisition rate, monthly churn %). Then you can play with these assumptions to find your pessimistic and optimistic cash flow scenarios. This will tell you how much cash you need and when, for the most-cash-hungry scenario.<p>Then work backwards based on how much time you think it will take you to raise money, and when you can afford to spend the effort to do that.<p>If it's the first time you're putting together a monthly budget or financial model, then start simple. Don't worry about highlighting every input cell in yellow. Just make sure the big numbers make sense. Make 2-3 copies of the sheet (one for each scenario) and adjust manually to something that looks reasonable to you.