The point about taking other people's money is a big one. I am in the process of starting a business doing cloud computing for accounting and ERP and we decide

The point about taking other people's money is a big one. I am in the process of starting a business doing cloud computing for accounting and ERP and we decided specifically against taking other people's money. I know that will sound like heresy on HN, but I want to discuss why we made that decision. I think other founders may find this to be a useful piece in that it may confirm that taking other people's money is a good decision or it may help question that. I don't think our decision was right for everyone. The basic issue that made us decide the way we did was that accepting VC money locks you into the VC exit strategy. This means you are building either an acquisition target or a company you want to take public. If that's what you want to do, partnering with VC's makes a lot of sense. They may help you get there faster. If you aren't sure that's what you want to do there is nothing wrong with taking the first steps on your own before committing to such a strategy. There's a second issue too, which is what I call "overfunding syndrome." The basic truth is that the vast majority of businesses will fail before they succeed. If you are funding it yourself and the like you have more options than if you are racing towards the VC exit strategy gamble. This is why bootstrapping can often be a real business saver. I suspect we could find investors if we wanted or needed to. But the fact that we don't need to at the moment and aren't sure we want to lock ourselves into the acquisition-or-IPO cycle means for us the best option is keeping our options open. That doesn't preclude changing our minds down the road, but it is a lot easier to decide that "you know, maybe we could use venture capital after all" than it is to change one's mind and get out of the funding cycle. To my mind this is part of staying upstream of the larger problems.