there are degrees of product-market fit. as someone concisely put it in the comments on A VC, there's fit and there's FIT. If you're a first-time entrepreneur

there are degrees of product-market fit. as someone concisely put it in the comments on A VC, there's fit and there's FIT. If you're a first-time entrepreneur, you'll most likely need to demonstrate some amount of fit, some traction, to get interest from outside investors. Also, there are a wide range of investors, even within the VC world, some more comfortable with seed stage and others who only like to invest when a business is ready to move from initial traction to scale. Then it's a matter of getting from fit to FIT.