I am a big believer in Seed-Strapping. You need some initial capital to get you started (can be as low as a few months of your own salary). But you should aim to bootstrap your solution.
The way I am trying to do this now is to only ask for money if I can obtain at least one paying customer who is willing to vouch for me. If I can't market an MVP to at least one small shop, I don't know why a non-fraudulent business partner would want to work with me. In any case, I wouldnt feel great about that relationship.
I've done the burn someone else's fifteen million bucks thing on tech stack shiny rabbit chases. It's really not a fun time in retrospect. Mostly just a sick feeling all the way to the bottom.
It really comes down to being willing to start small and grow within your means (even if that means a SMB loan or small investment).
But if you can’t find even 1 customer then it’s likely you’ve started building without talking to actual customers.