Founder questions about customers and VC plus startup data.

Founder questions about customers and VC plus startup data.

Author

Aron Meystedt
April 09, 2026

Hello, Aron here with ValidatorAI.com.
Quick message today. I want to briefly talk about:

  • The type of customer you need to find

  • Where VCs come into play after MVP

And I want to share this week’s startup formation data (more below).

Share of Total Ideas (Week over Week)

SaaS                     ████████████████████████      +7.6 pts
Platforms                ██████████████████            +6.1 pts
AI / Tech                ████████████████████████      -9.6 pts
E-commerce               ████████████                  -4.4 pts

I want to quickly cover a few questions that have been coming in from users, centered around customer targeting and VC money.



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Question 1: When looking for a target customer, what is the most important thing to look for?

A: Most founders find a customer group, with a problem, they can easily reach. But they never confirm one thing:

Do these people already spend money to solve this problem?

If the answer is no, the rest doesn’t matter… you’re just collecting opinions. You want to see this:

  • The customer is already paying for something similar

  • Solving it has a clear financial or time impact

A small business trying to increase revenue will pay. Someone “interested in learning” usually won’t. I’ve seen people discussing this on Reddit and LinkedIn lately. Objections always arise about ‘timing’ and ‘need’ etc. You want a motivated customer with money ready to spend.

As Paul Graham put it:

“Make something people want.”

And what people want enough to pay for is very different from what they’ll give feedback on.

Question 2: After I validate an idea and build an MVP, when does investment money come into play?

A: A lot of founders think the path is: idea → build something → raise money.

It’s not.

VCs fund traction, not concepts. They’re looking for something already working with users, revenue, retention, growth. They are looking to reduce risk, and the idea stage (with a new founder) is the riskiest area. Reducing risk looks like betting on a proven entrepreneur and/or funding something that has customers and revenue… so their funds can turn the startup into a growth rocket ship.

If you haven’t proven that someone will pay, there’s nothing to scale yet… therefore, there’s nothing to fund.


The real path is: idea → paying customer → repeatable growth → then capital

If you are looking for the steps to validate and move forward, we wrote a really good article about it here: Guide: How to Validate Your Idea in 2026

Idea Scores by Category (Past 7 Days)

Food / E-commerce        ████████████████████ 82.0
E-commerce (variant)     ████████████████████ 82.0
SaaS (detailed)          ███████████████████  80.9
AI / Tech                ██████████████████   79.1
SaaS                     █████████████████    78.1
EdTech                   ████████████████     77.0
Platforms                ███████████████      76.2
Manufacturing            ██████████████       74.4
HealthTech               ██████████████       75.4
Fashion / E-commerce     █████████████        74.0
Consulting / Services    █████████████        73.0
E-commerce (core)        ████████████         72.4

  • E-commerce (in certain niches) scoring highest (82)

  • SaaS + AI/Tech still strong, but not leading

  • Platforms slightly lower than expected

  • Consulting lowest, aligns with easier execution but less “scored strength”

Top 10 Countries by Idea Score (Past 7 Days)

Denmark                ████████████████████ 85.0
Kazakhstan             ████████████████████ 85.0
The Netherlands        ████████████████████ 85.0
Portugal               ███████████████████  84.0
Israel                 ██████████████████   83.5
Ireland                ██████████████████   83.0
Cameroon               █████████████████    82.0
Fiji                   █████████████████    82.0
Hong Kong              █████████████████    82.0
Latvia                 █████████████████    82.0

  • Multiple countries tied at 82.0 

  • Europe is heavily represented in top scores

  • Smaller / unexpected markets (Cameroon, Fiji, Latvia) showing strong idea quality

Base44 is our AI site builder partner

If you are ready to take the next step and make your idea real:

Drop this prompt into Base44 and mockup your idea for FREE!

“I’m building [describe your idea]. Please build me a modern landing page. My goal is to validate demand by collecting emails and pre-orders.”

If you are completely stuck, we can help you generate an idea and test it, safely:


👉 Generate a new concept with the Business Idea Generator
👉 Validate your idea with our Startup Idea Validation Tool


We also have over a dozen AI Startup Tools that help you launch, iterate, pivot, research and more. One of my favorites helps you Analyze the Assumptions in Your Startup.


Remember, you are valuable - your personality, skills and the way you see things are uniquely yours. It’s pretty epic.

Aron Meystedt

Chief Data Nerd at ValidatorAI.com

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