Alternative Funding and Growth Strategies for Service-Based Startups in the Age of AI Competition

Hey all, Most funding for startups is focussed on VCs or investors buying into a product company. For services businesses or consulting, what are the alternatives? There's 99 million AI companies out there now and I've heard advice from "go deep in one thing" to don't bother. What strategy has worked for others to get development work even though AI makes it easy to build the front end website? Looking forward to anyone's feedback or thoughts and thank you.