For me it was a question of time - raising money meant we could get up to speed faster. Sure, we could have bootstrapped, but then we'd be living on ramen for 3

For me it was a question of time - raising money meant we could get up to speed faster. Sure, we could have bootstrapped, but then we'd be living on ramen for 3 years before we could afford to pay ourselves a living wage (or worse, could have gotten stuck in never-ending consulting purgatory.) Not to mention the difficulty of attracting top developers when all you have to offer is equity and the promise of riches at some indeterminate time in the future. Anyway, for what it's worth I certainly don't regret dropping 10% in exchange for ~3 years of my life.