One of the big moments as a founder is when you achieve "external success": you raised a round, you got into a prestigious program, you were featured in the news. You have all the ingredients for "success," but your company has zero traction.
That is the best thing that can happen to you on this journey.
It forces you to internalize that there is no "hack" to reach Product-Market Fit.
Obviously, having money, support, and distribution helps, but...
NO investor, NO accelerator, and NO article in TechCrunch will get you to PMF.
The only thing that will is: talking to users, listening to their problems, solving them, and charging for it.
Since 2021, I've had the incredible opportunity to be an entrepreneur, working with people I deeply admire, learning so much from them, and building friendships I have to this day.
I used to think funding was the solution. Or working with A-players. Or better yet, being their partner. But no. It’s not that those things aren't helpful, but as I said: nothing in this world can magically make someone find value in what you built.
I also saw companies up close with a very cool external story and Tier 1 investors (Khosla, NFX, Lightspeed, a16z, etc.)... But then you find out the real state of their traction, and it's a completely different story.
And don't get me wrong: raising capital, going to events, joining programs, and being on social media IS PART OF THE GAME! You have to know how to play it and use all of it opportunistically to your advantage.
This is hard to understand if you've never experienced it, so hopefully you get to experiment and internalize all of the ego part of the startup world as fast as possible, so that you can focus on building a business as fast as possible.
But you have to tattoo this on your brain:
You can’t cheat your way into product-market-fit. The only way is by making something people want.