If capital is like oxygen, the conversation focuses on what might go wrong. Will your numbers and assumptions hold up? Will new risks blow up your model or the quality of your service? What unforeseen challenges might make you miss your numbers and run out of money sooner, requiring more oxygen down the road? What’s around the corner that will be a threat?

If capital is a weapon, the conversation tends to focus on what could go right. What will be the benefits around the corner with increasing returns to scale? What kind of game changing people will you attract? How will they elevate the quality of future hires? What kinds of unbreachable moats will you be able to build? Will you unlock a whole new set of customers once you have the scale or reach to support them? What’s around the corner, and how can you play that to your advantage?

It’s not that those who treat capital like oxygen don’t talk about upside and results. But I notice the focus tends to be more on numbers and scale. “We’ll get to $xx in revenue” or “We’ll be profitable.” When capital is a weapon, the milestones tend to be different, and tend to convey that a business will only get better and opportunities will only abound more as more investments are made.

Using capital this way isn’t just a matter of whether a company is doing well or poorly. A company with tons of momentum that raises a huge round just because it’s available or to store away for a “rainy day” is doing so defensively, and trying to bank tanks of oxygen. Still, I find that in nine out of ten cases (maybe more like 99 out of 100), companies tend to consume the capital they have in the bank. Raising lots of capital ends up being an unanticipated weight on a business, and often leads to a lack of focus, wasted uses of capital, undisciplined hiring and investments, and a reduction in scrappiness and work ethic. On top of that, you have the issues of more preferences and a potential valuation overhang. Every founder thinks that their company will be the exception, but I can assure you that you probably are not.

In this case, I suppose the capital is neither oxygen nor a weapon. Maybe the analogy here is that raising a ton of money before you really know what to do with it is like buying a bunch of huge cannons to be fired at a later date. Maybe it will pay off, but there is a risk that a) you don’t need them, b) that you’ll fire them in the wrong direction, and worst of all, c) that you are storing these heavy things on top of a castle with weak walls that can’t support them.

Regardless, when you go out to raise capital, you should ask yourself if you can credibly talk about how the capital will be a weapon that will help you win, and keep winning. If you can’t, that can be a problem, whether you are struggling to raise money or have investors banging down your door.