As someone who has seen both sides of the world that you describe, I think I can verbalize a topic that was not explicitly discussed in the video: if you feel forced to raise capital for a company that you personally don't believe in, then perhaps you shouldn't do it assuming you're early enough that you're not putting the livelihood of many other people at risk. Raising that capital will tie up years of your professional career in an underpaid and overworked role that has very little chance of returning your and other people's investment.

I didn't use to think this way until a few years ago when I experienced true product market fit. Prior to that, I always found myself slugging it out and just accepting that paying with blood, sweat and tears for even the tiniest amounts of success is the only way there is. But there truly are opportunities out there to solve other people's problems that are so important to those people that your experience in building that startup will be vastly different. Suddenly the metrics look good without having to put a spin on them, investors are competing to get into your rounds, you start getting inbound resumes from highly qualified candidates, and you're able to pay generous salaries so that you surround yourself with amazing professionals who are better than you in their specific domains and can work autonomously with a minimal amount of interaction. Next thing you know - you're no longer working on weekends, you can take vacations, go on maternity/paternity leave like other normal people, etc. In other words, life starts feeling normal again.

I struggle with sharing this because I don't want to demotivate anyone. A part of me believes that the slugging out portion of my life was the necessary ingredient that taught me many important lessons and that prepared me for the the moment when the stars finally aligned (but it certainly came with a mental and physical cost that took years to iron out again). There's also this idea that a startup might struggle for many years and then suddenly take off like crazy (I believe life360 is one of the many well-known examples). All I would say is don't overdo it - do the grind for as many years as you think is acceptable, and then at some point start getting a bit more picky about the risks you take. If you've got 10 years of grind behind you and your current startup is unlikely to succeed, shut it down, take a job, and try again in two years (or if you're lucky enough that you can afford going straight into your next startup, then by all means do that as well). Whatever you do, make sure that your next startup benefits from the lessons learnt in the previous one, which almost always means make sure that you have the product market fit (PMF).

That's the hard part - how do you know if you have the PMF without quitting your job and raising capital? Product Hunt, Kickstarter, Shown HN and similar feedback mechanisms can be helpful here.