Well, there's two types of money, aren't there?

"Real" money comes after product development, market fit testing, market penetration, iteration, supporting early adopters, building market presence, etc.

"Virtual" money comes after product sketching, roadmapping, pitching to VCs, and cashing out (ideally before the 'market fit testing' stage.)

Edit: Oof, unpopular opinion apparently.

The issue is, that if you want to create a startup because you want to get rich from it, it's the wrong attitude all together and will probably fail. Your concern shouldn't be how to get rich quick, but how to build a viable product that solves a real issue. If you get that done, the money will come.

Ha ha! I've sometimes joked that when you start a startup you have to decide who the "customer" is -- the person using the service or the VC. I've definitely worked at startups that were milking VCs. I don't really recommend it as a thing for technically minded people to do because you end up doing a lot of crazy stuff that has nothing to do with making a good product. But it definitely happens.

Precisely.