You don't need VC funding to grow your startup. Here's how to turn customers into investors.

The opinions expressed by entrepreneurs contributors are their own.

It's not easy to move from a beta or entry-level product to a mature enterprise solution when you're short on funding, but it's doable and part of being an entrepreneur. Frankly, you may not have a choice.

Take my business for example. We grew early on through our ability to quickly add marketable functionality without outside funding. We didn't have the excess revenue to build critical pieces, but our CEO found practical ways to get the job done without closing a venture capital round. As a result, we discovered that you don't always need outside funds or a bank loan to grow your product line. Instead, you can turn customers into investors.

Here are some tips on how to do this.

Related: Think You Need Venture Capital Support to Start Your Business? Think again.

1. Never outright deny what your product or company can do

Instead of saying "no, we can't do that", answer with an optimistic "maybe". If a customer asks a question about a feature, it means they have a problem that needs to be solved. They may be willing to incur an upfront subscription fee to compensate for the new feature release. Have this. It could be a win-win.

2. Respond with the sales team, not the technical team

Tech people usually have a long backlog of things to do, and they won't mince words about what you currently do or don't offer. In our team, coders and even coder-founders will usually give a definite yes or no.

These essential builders of the actual product often work in a world of binaries and are not always in a soft or . Let your sales team, who lives in the wild world of instincts and opportunism, explore the possibilities of keeping the conversation from hitting a wall.

3. Make sure your customer sticks around

Turning customers into investors can be as simple as getting the assurance that they'll stick around if you create a new feature for them.

If they're not willing to commit, either in writing or with upfront payment on usage, don't waste time building just for them. Their reluctance to engage may indicate that they don't need the solution that much. This doesn't make the case for investing in this new feature until you gather more evidence of demand.

Related: In fact, you don't need venture capital funding to be successful

4. Get proof that others want the feature

It's not enough for just one customer to want the new feature. Your fundamental goal should be to prioritize quality builds that many people will use. Find out if the newly requested feature is attracting interest from your other paying customers. Send surveys and make calls. Just because a customer is willing to pay and commit doesn't make the investment worth it.

Concrete examples to consider

Riot Games wanted to use our SaaS product in tandem with a new version of Cloud Dialogflow, a conversational AI framework. After our CEO analyzed 1) our team's bandwidth, 2) demand from other customers, and 3) how much Riot Games was willing to commit upfront, he decided to give the green light to the integration. The situation ticked all the boxes, and the initial amount paid for the construction made the client a kind of "investor".

Here's another one: The University of Birmingham needed a way to add our Messenger chat to Canvas, a leading platform for online classroom environments. So we sprinted to create a Botcopy/Canvas integration. At the time, we hadn't heard of Canvas, but discovered that it was one of the most popular online class suites in the world. As a result, we determined that our other education customers would be interested in this integration. Also, the integration wasn't difficult to set up quickly, so we didn't need a lot of stuff upfront to get there.

Related: How to Drive Growth – With or Without Venture Capital Funding