> "The problem with taking money from someone else is that, you become obligated/answerable to them." Could not disagree more. I co-founded and am the CEO of a

> "The problem with taking money from someone else is that, you become obligated/answerable to them." Could not disagree more. I co-founded and am the CEO of a funded company. Investors (at least professional ones, which, if you have a good company, you can vet them as much or more as they vet you to make sure they are professional!) will encourage you, meet with you, and even help you work through problems and issues. But by no means are you obligated to do anything that they say. In fact, most would prefer that if you have market data that disagrees with them, you go with what the market says--after all, you are the expert in this space, not they... > "And what happens when that company fails? You need to either apologize/console the investor that you will somehow get back his money." No, on typical seed round investments (and even Series A and above), you do not owe the investors back their money. There's not even a moral obligation to pay them back--they understand the risks, and as others have stated above in the comments, if this loss was going to make them destitute, they should absolutely not ever have been investing in your round. (Which is why you should be doing the due diligence on them as much or more as they were on you, before they invested.) Getting investors and pitching, etc. was really scary for me. But once I found the right people, I realized how awesome it was. They have a (small) financial interest in me, so I can ask them honest questions and get answers from their perspective. It is a blessing and it has helped me run my company better than I ever would have without investors.