It's also a sure-fire way to fail. One thing nobody ever mentions about raising money: You're aligning your interests with some pretty powerful people. The fact

It's also a sure-fire way to fail. One thing nobody ever mentions about raising money: You're aligning your interests with some pretty powerful people. The fact is, nobody really wants you to succeed -- everybody is trying to make it themselves, too. But once you get investors, you get growth capital, advice, and a powerful ally, who knows people. The power of having other people who really want your business to succeed to can't be understated. It's: - Good advice (with the right investor). - Someone with connections who is constantly talking about you and trying to do good things for you. - Another person you are accountable to (failure isn't just your own, that's too easy). It all boils down to the type of business you are trying to make. If you'd be happy pulling in 200k of revenues after building a company for 2 years and being barely profitable with 2 full-time employees and other misc costs, then you might be able to bootstrap, maybe. If you're trying to grow a business fast, or grow a huge business, it's just not going to work.