Yeah… I can see your point.

I guess I’m trying to provide general, easy guidelines for “getting started” with fundraising rather than any explicit rules.

In other words, what I’m trying to say is: “If you can figure out how to get started and get some customers for less than, say, $100k, go do that and don’t worry about talking with VCs.”

Once you’ve got some initial traction, you can use it to go after a VC-backed round (assuming you actually need it).