I agree, and I'll supplement with this;

>> But from now on, I'm either gonna be a successful founder, or I'm not. And if I'm not, I'll have to deal with having broken with the expectations that people had of me.

Don't worry, they expected you to fail. They hoped you'd succeed, but expected failure. Statistically most businesses fail, and failure rates are faster when your customers are VCs not users.

I say this as encouragement, not criticism. Accepting that failure is (by far) the most likely outcome is both realistic and freeing. The anxiety of failure is gone.

Frankly, your lack of marketing experience would worry me. Without the ability to reach users (much less customers) how can you do anything but fail? New businesses are not bounded by technical ability (especially in the age of AI) they are bounded by Marketing.

Who needs marketing when the VC can get their entire portfolio to buy your product.