[brudgers]

Why do you need to raise money if you already have customers lining up to pay?

It sounds a bit like you are on the verge of making money from what you know how to do and instead of just doing that, you're trying to do something you don't know how to do first.

What is wrong with bootstrapping for now, focusing on delivery, and fundraising (or not) later?

The end goal of any business is not fundraising, but cashflow.

[zmkahn]

I need to raise money for a few different reasons.

Right now, though I have an MVP-plus, a lot of the work that's being done is being done manually (e.g, analysis, report creation/generation, etc.). If I want to scale and get beyond a handful of beta-customers, I need to automate those processes. I've analyzed what it would take, and it's something that's out of my range to boot-strap. If I don't automate, or even partially automate, I'm going to be stuck with a handful of customers. With automation, I can add dozens, if not hundreds of customers.

Secondly, not only are some of my customers asking for a whole new incremental feature set, but I see the market ripe for the picking. In order to develop these new features, it'll require a new wave of development (for mobile) that I also can't self-fund.

Outside money would help in both of these, allowing me to move beyond perpetually having a few customers to growing this venture into a growing business.

[brudgers]

All that makes sense over the medium term.

I still don't see a clear short term advantage in chasing funding right now rather than converting a handful of potential customers into actual customers. That's not to say that there isn't one.

A potential customer who says "I would buy this if you added mobile" is a poor prospect at this point. They are a poor fit for your product [and in many cultures "maybe" is a less confrontational way of saying "no."].

Focusing on your strengths - design and delivery lead to validating or failing to validate your ideas more quickly and should your ideas validate, then attracting funding will be easier and it is more likely that you will do so on favorable terms.

If your ideas validate, then it will probably only be partially, and having that information before spending capital will allow you to spend capital more efficiently. For some people raising capital in your circumstances makes sense - particularly if they are good at it. By your admission, you are not.

Bootstrapping into perpetuity is one extreme. Slowing down right now to raise capital is the other. It is not an either or. There is a middle way, wherein you do not have to jump an additional hurdle before validating. All I've got to go on, is what you have said. It seems pretty well thought out, and my $0.02 investment in your business is based on your description and my gut feeling about human nature.

Good luck.