My partner started a business and literally from her first ad she was inundated with customers. Now it's a $10m/year bootstrapped business. I've done exactly the same thing and had 0 customers.
If you are falling into the Hard Fact / Future Vision categories it can very hard to get customers because no one is ever looking for your product.
If her idea was "when you pay me x, you get 3x back in new revenue" and your idea was a tarpit idea like "help people find what to eat tonight", it's really obvious why you failed.
if you done the same and have 0 customers that means you did something incorrectly.
it is IMPOSSIBLE to do the same thing that works and net 0 customers.
In reality the agents are not identical (e.g. different skillsets, or attractiveness to clients), and the environments are different (e.g. different professional or social networks).
And, as another commenter pointed out, the time when agents are starting is also a factor, but my point is that even if they start at the same time the result might be different.
Lastly, there is a butterfly effect - that small changes in the initial conditions may result in vastly different outcomes.
The guys writing PMF is a lottery are jaded because they are afraid to admitting their own weak points. They failed because they ignored something. The ones with emotional intelligence and self-awareness are able to navigate and negotiate.
Founders keep fixating on pick-me startup, hoping for a cushy exit, that happens less than 0.1% of the time, the odds are as bad as wanting to go to NFL, if not WORSE. VCs and investors also have to deliver returns they can't keep bank rolling something that they don't see a market in.
There’s also a lot of confusing finding / getting PMF with what PMF is.
Product market fit is pretty straightforward: I have a product that meets people’s needs in a way that the market demonstrates by paying money for (usually with the connotation of profitability).
Finding this is incredibly hard and rare, thus it seems to get convoluted with a lot of emotions.
Far too many companies stick with one, failing ticket
It's no wonder so many fail when most people don't bother to study business strategy, entrepreneurship and marketing first.
* Competing against luck
* Four steps to the epiphany
* Positioning by Ries (IIRC)
But also books on business strategy and marketing are essential. I read several at uni. Maybe pick up an HBR guide or FT book if you don't want to go for a full textbook.
They should give you more ways to think about problems, let you be more confident in ideas you choose, and reinforce the need to iterate quickly and only gradually commit more resources.
Most entrepreneurial advice could probably be summarised as: make products with new tech that solve real problems.
The new tech part means you get in before competitors, and solving real problems keeps it laser focussed on customers with important enough problems they'll pay for it.
So basically, yes, amount raised.
The reason I used to think this is like other technically orientated founders. If I build for a market that doesn't exist then you are playing lotto. It's not even good odds, you are better off playing 0dte spx coin flip.
What you fear you build for and if all you have are unknowns then you are going to simply end up building everything lose differentiation and your potential customers even if they find you will walk
Despite classics like the SBF article that was taken down, this framework is quite good but the best thing to do as bootstrappers is to focus on generating net positive cashflow as soon as possible not running a PMF search engine which requires lot of minds and capital injection.