First VC meeting came in just as i was ready to quit. Advice?
For the past year I've been bootstrapping my startup as a solo founder in tech, pursuing a vision I've had for years, in a space I'm deeply passionate about. It's been tough. While for the majority of the year I maintained a high level of energy and enthusiasm, gradually I begun to feel stuck and like I wasn't making much progress. After about 9 months, I started looking for angels/VCs (i felt i wasn't ready to before that) but never got a meeting or reply. I pinged my fellow founder friends for intros, but most said I was too early still. With an empty bank account, zero savings, and 1 year of living in poverty, I finally caved in. I'm an engineer by training from a top university. I talked to a recruiter and they lined up 3 interviews on the spot, all paying $200k/yr. After living with under $15k/yr for the past year, eating out of government food stamps, and quickly approaching my 30s (and feeling broke), quitting my dream was really tempting. I started interviewing for jobs, ready to call it a day. But then a VC finally answered. One. They want a meeting for next week. Of course I took it. Problem is: I had 2 feet out the door before this, mostly because I was feeling so dejected and broke and because I felt I was making no progress. I understand people get rejected anyways. I understand that out of 100 meetings only 1 might say yes. But even then, this is the first meeting that'd been granted to me. It feels like an opportunity, but mentally I'm so checked out. I can't help but feel I'm "catfishing" somehow. How should I handle this?