I caught up with a founder who’s been trying to sell his solution to customers for months. It’s gaining traction—but more slowly than he would like. With his current monthly burn rate and cash on hand, he has less than a year of runway. He realized he likely wouldn’t reach breakeven before his runway ends, and raising more capital from investors is far from certain, so he decided to try something different.

At the end of his pitch, he began asking his prospective customers if they would buy his solution if he repurposed it to address a few pain points they’d mentioned. The response has been overwhelmingly positive. The pitch meetings went from maybe we’ll try this to, yes, we want to buy that. In the same meeting.

It’s early, but the response is night-and-day different, according to the founder. He spent months building a solution that sold slowly. Then he began giving out one-pagers on his new solution, and prospective customers are ready to sign up. He went from begging for follow-up meetings to customers asking for follow-up meetings within three days of the initial meeting (two meetings in one week!). He went from trying to convince customers to pay for a solution to customers offering to pay in advance.

It’s early and a lot could happen or not happen, but this founder has likely hit on the painful problem that could lead to product–market fit. Product–market fit is hard to define, but when you have it or are getting close, your customers will let you know with their wallets.

The prospect of running out of money has been scary for this founder, but it looks like it could have been the spark that led his company to early signs of product–market fit. The team is focused on building what customers want instead of what investors want to hear.