💡 What Real Founder Leverage Looks Like (And What to Do If You Have None)

by Masatoshi Nishimura

Have you experienced the massive headline where it says these young entrepreneurs raised $1M with no real product. If you are puzzled by how unfair the world is, this blog is for you.

Many first-time founders feel this — you’ve got the ambition, you’ve got the drive, but when you look at yourself compared to what investors seem to back, you realize:

“I have no leverage.”

No PhD.
No famous cofounder.
No proven track record.
No insider network.

And you’re not wrong — in startup funding, leverage matters. It's the currency of investment—proof that you have something they need. But it’s not always what you think. Here’s a breakdown of the kinds of founder leverage that actually move the needle with investors — and what to do when you have none.

🧩 1. Team Leverage

A strong team is a signal that can’t be faked.

Two or three people, with complementary skills, who work well together and can ship fast — this is rare, and investors know it.

Why it works:

  • Solo founders burn out or get stuck
  • Good people are hard to recruit without trust
  • A real team shows commitment and momentum

If you can bring on a sharp cofounder, you instantly gain legitimacy — even before product-market fit.

🔍 2. Customer Insight Leverage

This is the most underrated and accessible form of leverage.

If you’ve spent time in the trenches — talking to your target customers, learning their real pain points, and building for them — you have something no investor can replicate.

Why it works:

  • Investors can’t easily do this research themselves
  • Most founders skip this step and build blindly
  • Insight from talking to 20 real users beats intuition

The founder who knows their customer better than anyone else becomes investable — even without credentials.

🧠 3. Deep Tech / Science Leverage

This is the obvious one: PhDs, ex-researchers, or ex-FAANG engineers with deep technical expertise in a specific domain.

Why it works:

  • It’s defensible
  • Hard to fake
  • Especially powerful in biotech, AI, robotics, and hard tech

But — it takes years to build and doesn’t always lead to insight into what customers actually want.

🚀 4. Distribution Leverage

This is the "unfair advantage" of having a built-in audience that trusts you. It's the media power that money can't buy, built through a popular newsletter, a large social media following, or a dedicated online community.

Why it works:

  • It solves the "cold start" problem for customer acquisition.
  • It proves there's an existing market for your ideas.
  • It dramatically lowers your marketing costs.

When you can launch your product to thousands of waiting fans on day one, you've de-risked the entire go-to-market strategy for an investor.

So, What If You Have None?

If you're honest and say:

“I’m a solo founder. I’m smart, but not a PhD. I don’t have a team. My product’s still immature.”

Then start where leverage is earnable today:

✅ Step 1: Go All-In on Customer Insight

This is the fastest way to:

  • Gain confidence
  • Stand out
  • Create a product people want
  • Attract a cofounder
  • Build investor trust

Talk to 10, then 20, then 50 users. Take notes. Notice patterns. Iterate your product based on what they say, not what you imagine.

Instead of saying:
“We’re building a tool to help museums grow.”
Say:
“After 15 interviews with regional museum curators, we found they struggle with 3 things: 1) no one owns digital content, 2) they don’t know how to repurpose collections, and 3) their directors won’t spend on social media. So we built a lightweight tool that helps them auto-generate content from their existing archives.”

That kind of insight?
That’s leverage.

✅ Step 2: Use Insight to Attract a Team

Once you’ve got customer traction, you can:

  • Recruit a cofounder with complementary skills
  • Convince interns or freelancers to join
  • Make your pitch 10x more compelling to investors

Instead of pitching an idea, you’re pitching momentum.

Closing Thought

Leverage isn’t just about status. It’s about what others can’t do or don’t want to do.

If you’re not famous, rich, or technical — no problem.
Be the one who knows your customer better than anyone else.

Start there.
Leverage follows.