It depends on the startup. If I were starting a company that needs a critical mass to be profitable (eg a social network), and therefore needed more cash up fr

It depends on the startup. If I were starting a company that needs a critical mass to be profitable (eg a social network), and therefore needed more cash up front that could be produced without external funding, then no, I probably wouldn't try to boot strap. In another example, my hypothetical startup might be able to reach profitability via bootstrapping, but wouldn't be able to grow organically fast enough to prevent competitors with deep pockets from beating you to market dominance. In such a case, taking external funding to scale quickly might be a wise move. So yeah, I'd bootstrap if my startup lent itself to it, since having more equity is great. Ultimately, though, I'll do what the startup needs.