

Ask YC: Venture backed Startup or Bootstrapped/Consulting route? - prakash

I am curious to know the route founders/ potential founders would take, and more importantly <i>Why?</i>:<p>1.) Raise money from VC's?<p>2.) Bootstrap/ Consult you way through?
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jon_dahl
Don't forget angel investors. Not easy to get, but then again neither is
venture funding. You can often raise enough for a YC-style startup - I know an
entrepreneur who raised over $4M from angels and no institutional funding.

The upside of this approach is that it may open other paths to success. A VC
is likely going to push you to go big big big. Angels are more likely to be
happy with a modest success.

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npk
The choice seems to be, do you plan on building a leveragable product or not
(<http://blog.pmarca.com/2007/06/the_truth_about.html>). If the answer is no,
then you bootstrap, if the answer is yes, then leverage the hell out of it --
and so you need $$ from VCs.

My personal choice is to leverage. Riskier, but more fun.

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brlewis
The whys:

1) Capital and advice for fast growth

2) Control, flexibility, or you're going after a market where growth is
necessarily slow.

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bigtoga
Interesting. Sorry to hijack this post but I want to know:

1) Which is better: Ford or Chevy?

2) Should I use Linux or WIndows

And don't forget the most important thing: _Why_?

