Ask HN: How to make money with SaaS without network or VC funding?

Hi HN, Long time reader here. I am posting for the first time. I am building a SaaS after leaving my job in 2024. I was at one of the FAANG (sweat shop one). After FAANG I joined a mid-size company in Texas. I left on my own accord after seeing how terrible decision it was to leave FAANG. I was an engineer turned manager at both companies. I am not against managing but I am old enough now to be in L5 SWE role.

I am coming to realization that job was more comfortable than building the startup. I haven't stopped working for last 6 months and consistently worked 15-16 hours. I have to do so many things such as write code to some extent, sales, marketing, administrative work, compliance, keeping track of accounts, managing churn. It just never ends.

It's been a hell of experience but we (team of 2) are not even bringing in survival money. We had two customers and lost one recently. What a shame!

We raised money from an unknown VC group (sub $100k) but it has been total disaster. They actually pulled us down, misguided us, and demanded things that we do things "their" way. I wish I had never applied or took funding. It has left a bitter taste in my mouth regarding VC. They have no network and in fact they bad mouthed us to a few investors we met with that resulted in some investers ghosting us completely.

Now, we are facing a dilemma. We are giving it one last push before we shut things down. Here is the problem - 1. We are in the domain where we have no expertise in. We are technologists and generalists (Data, ML, AI, Python, C++). Implementation and technical solutions are never problem for us. We can build.

2. I have read and come to realization that without network there is no business. Either you have existing network of founders, customers or you make one through VCs like YC. How sweet is that anything you build you have buyers lined up or at least providing great advice and early validation.

Should we pivot to completely new domain? We dont have expertise in one particular domains area (accounting, tax, supply chain etc.), but we have good knowledge of technology software (think data pipelines, ML, AI models). If we do software for software (e.g. Cursor, Lovable), we worry that closed source might hurt us. Do you think having open source would be a better path for making money?

We can back to job market but things are not green on other side and it is taking 6 months or so for people to get jobs based on my reading. I want to try one last time.

We are stuck without much guidance. What would be your recommendation?