Many startup founders think: “I need funding to build.”

So you dive headfirst into the fundraising hamster wheel.

• You spend weeks (maybe months) perfecting your pitch deck
• You apply to every accelerator you can find
• You cold-email dozens of investors, hoping one will say “yes"
• You wait and wait...

And finally, when you do get a reply, it’s the classic line: “Come back when you have traction.”

Now it’s been months. Your deck looks great, but your product doesn’t exist. You’re mentally and emotionally drained. You’ve spent more time pitching a dream than building anything real.

You’re stuck in fundraising limbo.

Here’s the hard truth:

It’s tempting to believe that if you just get some capital, then you can hire a team, build your product, launch it to the world, and then find traction.

But that’s backwards. Traction doesn’t come after you raise money. Money comes after you get traction.

VCs are betting on evidence: user engagement, paying customers, retention, feedback loops; real signals that your product is wanted.

The only way to generate those signals?

👉 Stop chasing investors. Start chasing customers.

• Launch quickly
• Get real users, even if it’s just 5 or 10
• Charge something, no matter how small
• Truly listen to their needs
• Adapt and evolve based on what you learn

By building what your early users actually want, everything changes. This doesn’t just move you forward. It transforms your business.

Now you have real data.

Early users give you insight you can’t find in a spreadsheet or a pitch meeting. You’ll learn what features matter (and what to cut), why people stick around (or don’t), and whether people will pay for your solution. It’s the foundation of product-market fit.

Your product sharpens.

Instead of building based on assumptions, you’re building based on feedback. That means every iteration makes your product more useful and more likely to succeed.

Your investor pitch is now grounded in results.

When you do eventually approach investors, you’re not saying: “Here’s what I think might work.”

You’re saying: “Here’s what is already working, and here’s how we scale it.”

That shift in narrative changes everything. You go from asking for belief to demonstrating evidence. That’s what gets investors to lean in.

Still not convinced? Let’s look at a few examples.

• Shopify: Bootstrapped with customer revenue, hit immense momentum, and then raised to scale; not to validate product-market fit.
• eClinicalWorks: Scaled exclusively from paying customers and became a major industry player without VC funding.

Momentum from real users is the strongest proof your startup can offer. Ironically, that’s what attracts investment in the first place.

What’s worked better for you: chasing funding or chasing customers?

Chances are, building with and for your customers will put you on the fast track, funded or not.