It is very, very, very difficult to raise venture capital investment for your startup. Especially right now. In fact, one of my investor friends just told Axios that this is the worst startup investment environment he's seen since the Great Recession.

Woof. I'm guessing that like 90 percent of you don't remember that period. It was no fun.

Fine. That's OK. As a career entrepreneur, I wear the customer-first badge. Proudly. I strongly believe raising money through customer sales is the best option, and in a lot of cases, it should be the only option. READ MORE