But if you've done all the hard work of building your business, proving your market, and crushing revenues or hitting profitability, then talking to investors b

But if you've done all the hard work of building your business, proving your market, and crushing revenues or hitting profitability, then talking to investors becomes more like a partnership discussion than it does one where you're a poor, starving founder begging for money (you bring zero value to the table). Github is my favorite example. They bootstrapped themselves all the way through, and in the process, they maintained their own identity and culture, built a great product and killer team, and were minting $$$. Then when the right time came for them to scale up to the enterprise and move fast, they decided to take VC money.