Anyone has experience launching startup from scratch (possibly with KSUM)? How was the experience?

I and 2 of my friends are working on an AI based startup. We kinda have a POC in our hand that need some polishing, and we are working on it. The MVP would take some time but we already have a roadmap for it as well as buisiness model (mainly cloud based subscription model).

We're looking into schemes by govt. and likes for startup grants as well as finding investors and KSUM (a startup incubator by Kerala govt.) seems to be a great bet. I would like to know how others here in this space managed to launch their startups. And what challenges you faced.

I) can we start trying on KSUM with our POC stage or should we wait for product to mature? II)How can one manage to secure funding from investors? We do have a clear cut plan for buisiness model and such so we should be able to provide a presentation to the investors about the same.