How can any startup get funding initially?

In most cases you do not need any money to validate your idea and even sell something. When you have validation than there are quite a few options: ➜ Smaller (no equity) local grants ➜ Angel Investors ➜ Pre-seed and Seed VCs ➜ FFFs (friends, family and fools) ➜ Crowd founding (especially for hardware) ➜ Bootstrapping - Either start pre-sales or continue working 40 hours a week regular job plus 40 hours a week on your startup