Chasing the Money: Stop Trying to Raise. Start Trying to Sell

Yes! I like this.

One problem, from the VC's perspective, is that if the startup starts selling successfully, they may not NEED VC.

Awesome advice. I'll just tell the landlord, supermarket, phone company, and other suppliers that I'm trying to sell my product before I've raised money and they should be proud of supporting a venture whose founding members and first hires are all willing to work for fresh air.

Sorry for the snark, but I'm in a position like this just now. I am in fact working for nothing at present and stretching out a small personal windfall in order to do it. I'm lucky and grateful to have the freedom to do that. We're not a tech startup so our needs are a bit different from grab laptop, update SDK, churn out code - but even so, unless you happen to have deep pockets it takes time and money for any business to make its first sales (which in our case are b2b and thus not free for the customer). I could not and would not do this if I had kids or if Mrs Browl didn't have a good job that allows me to risk my time participating in this venture I'm working for.

A lot of people forget VC is a growth mechanism. It depends on someone's plans. Maybe you don't want to be a big 100 million dollar company that has to play the "VC Exit" game. Then sure, you don't need to raise money. You didn't at fog creek, and you're killing it.

Some people like to play the "VC Exit" game and raise the money to grow a company to potentially become huge. Sure they could still grow with their own revenues, but a 6 million infusion will sure make it happen a lot faster.

Most of this everyone already knows. Just a lot of entrepreneurs out there that want to raise money when a) they havent done the simple things they should have or b) for validation and because tEh Bl0gz instill this need to raise VC to succeed.

Aye exactly, the linked post is great advice, but if you can't pay your company run rate (i.e. you can't pay your own rent!) then you have two options: raise money or get a job/other source of income and keep going part-time.

"Raise money" can include selling, but if you're still developing the product, what do you sell? Not everyone can conjure weeks' or even months' worth of living expenses out of the air while the product gets done.

Great advice. Don't let the headline prevent you from reading the actual blog entry. It walks you through a real-life dialogue. You can't escape its mechanical precision: you will be forced down the path of thinking "what an idiot I am of going after VCs now".

This blog post is the difference between teaching the theory ("I understand the argument") and experiencing it ("now I get it").