Maybe throwing out a third then -- get people in your network to introduce you to VCs. Also hard, but startups just aren't easy I guess.

YC gives up equity. If you don't have any prior experience, it's good, but not for experienced enterprise founders in b2b saas startups. The latter should make demo videos and blog about their progress once they've exited stealth. While in stealth, they need to approach alpha/beta users, who may well invest and/or m&a.

“Don’t chase, be chased” assumes you have the capital or team to execute. Many startups don’t have both and most successful startups require both. Investment alleviates the former to then help solve the latter.

“Get into YC” is hysterical advice because the % of companies who are accepted into YC is around ~2%. One does not simply “get into YC”.

Some context around the 2% - that's the average figure that encompasses a wide range of quality of applications. Everyone is applying to YC these days, to the point that a material number of those applications is an instant no. So if you 1) have a killer business plan, 2) have put in 10,000 hours into your craft as an entrepreneur, and 3) have a working demo with some customers and early metrics, you're likely dealing with just the top 30% or so of the applications. At this point, you're closer to a 7% admission rate, and your odds keep improving as you keep applying (because a lot of other people don't, and that's all tracked), so your net effective chance is closer to 10%. I don't know about you, but if someone told me "here's a path to the riches, and there's a 10% chance that it'll work for you," I would jump at it!

So my advice, get accepted into any startup accelerator/business incubator. That alone helps with traction with VCs.