When do you know it’s time to quit - I will not promote
I have been trying to raise capital for this startup for pretty much the last 6 months. We’ve had some big meetings, most recently with the biggest VC in the world. I feel like we’re progressing but due to the binary nature of fundraising if it isn’t a cheque then you haven’t really moved the needle. We’re completely bootstrapped and tbh I’ve run out of money to actually fund the build any further.
The one thing these VCs keep saying is “we believe this is where the market is headed”. So we don’t need to convince them that we’re building is the right thing to build.
For context: I’ve decided to build my first ever startup in the hardest possible market for a first time founder - consumer fintech. The reason for this is because I frankly don’t give a shit about anything else. I don’t want to become a founder because I think it’s a way for me to get rich quick. I want to build what I’m building to solve a real pain. A pain I’ve felt deeply in my life. Ive validated the thesis, it’s a pain that’s shared by many and with the emergence of AI it can truly be solved at scale now and the market itself is at an inflection point.
We keep getting told “you’re a bit early for us” but when we’re building a consumer fintech you can’t just vibe code a product and launch it and get there. There’s regulation, compliance, user trust, brand awareness, consumer duty, infrastructure that costs 100s of thousands. How am I supposed to get traction on something we need capital to build. How can we prove anything to any institutional investor without at least raising a pre seed to prove it. It just doesn’t make sense to me. I thought venture was all about taking risks, most VCs agree that the market is headed in the very direction we’re building towards. But they don’t agree we’re ready to raise yet because we’ve not proven our model.
I guess what I’m struggling with the most is - when do you know it’s time to wrap it up and focus energy on other things ? I’ve been rejected and ignored more time in the last month than most people do in a lifetime. I’ve run out of ideas on how to get the traction we need to raise the round. I honestly thought at least one VC would be willing to take a calculated bet on us. We’re a solid team with solid experience and we’re building something proprietary backed by published research with a strong data moat. We’re not something that can be vibe coded in a weekend and that’s what makes us defensible. I’m starting to think that it’s not the idea but it’s me. I’m not your quintessential startup founder, I have no network, no rich family member, no family or friends in high places, no big name company on my CV and I didn’t go to MIT/Oxford But I did graduate from a top university in the UK, I am a strong product operator with 8 years of experience and my co founder is a theoretical physics grad turned AI researcher. We’re not by any means unqualified to pull this off. But I don’t know how much more of a beating I can take. We need traction to raise money, to get traction we need money. To get money we need traction.
I’m sure this isn’t a unique experience I’m going through. If someone out there can offer some advice or help me identify a blind spot I’d greatly appreciate it.
I’ve tried raising from angels, family offices, VCs. So far it’s resulted in 0 raised and I don’t really know what else to do at this point.