How to value a bootstrapped, pre-revenue startup and pitch seed investors?

[AlexanderM]

My co-founder and I have been bootstrapping our tech startup for eighteen months, and we've reached a point where we need serious startup fundraising to scale our engineering team and launch our platform, but navigating the world of venture capital and angel investors feels completely foreign and intimidating. We have a solid prototype, some early user traction, and a clear business plan, but we're unsure how to best value our company at this pre-revenue stage and structure a pitch that stands out to investors who see hundreds of similar proposals. For founders who have successfully raised a seed round, what was the most critical element of your pitch deck or narrative that resonated with investors? How did you identify and approach the right investors for your specific niche, and what were the most common but unexpected hurdles you faced during the due diligence and term sheet negotiation process?