Yeah, that minimum viable commitment point hits hard. I've pulled the data on enough early-stage SaaS pipelines to say that half-assed SEO is worse than doing nothing. You burn budget on content that never compounds, you train the algo to ignore your domain, and you waste time you could've spent on paid or outbound where the feedback loop is weeks, not months.
The real killer is the opportunity cost. Every blog post you publish without a proper topical authority plan and a 12-month horizon is basically a donation to Google. I've seen companies spend six months on SEO, get 50 visits a month, and then blame the channel. No, you just didn't commit enough to earn the placement.
For my own sanity I started modelling SEO as a fixed-cost infrastructure bet, not a performance channel. Either you allocate the full headcount and wait, or you don't touch it until Series A. The long game is fine, but pretending you can hedge with a few articles is just vanity metrics in disguise.
