VCs have their own investors (LPs) that they have to justify every investment to, particularly when they fail. That means VCs are generally cowardly, investing

VCs have their own investors (LPs) that they have to justify every investment to, particularly when they fail. That means VCs are generally cowardly, investing only in startups that already appear to be successful in some way. Usually this means that either the founders are prestigious (pedigree) or the startup is already taking off (traction). I'll assume you don't have pedigree, which means you only have the traction avenue open to you. This might look like building the first version(s) yourself, attracting a large number of users/developers, and then bootstrapping and/or raising money.