Does having paid customers prior to a seed round hurt valuations?

We run a SaaS product which, until recently, was completely free to use. We're just starting to roll out a premium paid version and there are very few paid accounts.

Would having this paid account right now hurt us in raising a seed round from angels and early-stage VCs? Since they'll likely get distracted by our "revenue" figures from those new paid accounts.

They're only going to get distracted, if you paint the numbers/proposition in such a way that they can get distracted.

Having paying customers is never a downside - but be sure to make potential investors understand that you have only just switched to a monetisation model, and that there will be many experiments before you understand the right model and pricing.

Here are some case studies that will help shed some insight:

• Gigaom: Case Studies in Freemium: Pandora, Dropbox, Evernote, Automattic and MailChimp
• Business of Software: Constant Contact: How to Negotiate the Slow SaaS Ramp of Death
• Sramana Mitra: Evernote's Capital-Intensive Freemium Model Works