Originally posted: Medium
I’ve been invited to accelerators many times:
—_ “Why don’t you join? There’s a chance to raise a round.”
_
Yeah, you smash your head against the wall of corporate processes. And so do I. There’s no real progress, and you slowly burn out. And so do I. Then comes the reboot with another project… which ends up with the same fate as the previous one. So why do you — I do this?
Here’s my answer: I don’t buy into the accelerator moonspeak about “success stories” and “exits.” That doesn’t say anything, and it doesn’t show the product. A startup ≠ a product.
There are countless startups that made an exit. But the average person (and honestly, even a not-so-average one) has no clue what the actual product is. Their website says BOOK DEMO — and when you click, they pitch you on Zoom about how “your KPIs will improve by X%.” Great!
The corporation buys it because they need to report to the stock exchange that they are “innovating.” Everyone’s happy. But where’s the product? Does it even exist? Often not. There’s a round, advertising, noise, hype, even an exit. But no product. And the team burns out because they don’t understand what they are building (even for good money) — and most importantly, why.
Product
So what is a product for me?
It’s simple: something I personally am ready to use right away, without conditions. Value here and now. Clear and blunt like a crowbar.
My metric #1 — do I use it myself? Every day?
Yes → then it’s a product.
No → not interested.
Example: Element to LLM
Just a couple of days ago, we launched a browser extension. It makes real-time snapshots of code. Element to LLM — if you’re curious.
We just started talking about it, and guess what? Retention is almost 100%. Why? Because it was built to solve our pain. And it’s already clear that this pain is systemic — everyone who debugs, works in QA, or in design with LLMs has the same issue.
Built entirely on our own. E2LLM is a product. Ready and proven. Not very famous yet, sure. But real, working, and obvious — unlike millions of startups that can’t even tell you what they actually do.
Why Without Investors?
Here’s the thing:
As long as you don’t have traction or at least PMF, nobody needs you. You’re just a dreamer.
When you do have those — you don’t need investors anymore.
You’ll get investor money at the exact moment when you can already do without it. In my case, with a product in hand, I don’t need them.
And our goal is not fundraising and an office with a palm tree in the corner for Instagram pictures.
The goal is the real value from applying our work — our E2LLM.
Manifesto
A startup is not my path. My path is the product.
Element to LLM solves a real problem: real-time snapshots of code (or UI, or whatever you throw at it).
Try it yourself — a product, not a startup. Without investors.
Products like ours — E2LLM. And tell us how it works for you.
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