Hey Henry,
It's all calibration and depends on the girl. Getting her to chase you also doesn't have to take time - some girls are interested from first site and you can escalate things with them pretty quickly. Depends on a girls type, how well you handle her objections, your leading ability, how needy you are, among other things.
The big thing to "balance getting her to chase you/not coming across as needy and not taking too long" is to notice escalation windows and jump through them. Assuming she finds you attractive enough and you let her feel she can seduce you without any damage to her image and you can lead an interaction, she'll sleep with you on the first date. If you miss escalation windows, you'll be taking too long. If you force an interaction when there's no window, you'll come across as pushy and needy. For her to chase you, she has to show more interest in you than you show in her (at least initially).
If a girl shows a lot of interest in you and you take things slow because you're nervous/scared, she'll lose interest and think "maybe he wasn't as interested in me as I thought he was". If she shows little interest and you press in and text her all the time and constantly bombard her, she'll view you as needy and lose all attraction for you. Let her show more interest than you do. Reward her good behavior and punish her bad behavior (anything that moves the courtship away from your goal - aka sex).
How long is too long to take her to bed can also depend. If it's social circle, you have more time. But with cold approach, first date is best. Assume every date afterwards, your chances of losing her increase exponentially. That's also when you start to get put in the friend/boyfriend zone and she'll stop viewing you as a lover candidate.
Hope this helps,
NBW
