[edanm]

There are at least some people who would tell you that the only reason to take VC money is if you need it to scale your sales/marketing efforts.

And implied by that is that you only take money when you're at the stage that scaling your sales/marketing makes sense, which is usually after product/market fit.

(All of this doesn't mean that most money doesn't go to salaries - most money does go to salaries.)