Fair point Mark, I do not know you. Even though my post may come across as aggressive, that wasn't my intent. I'm just getting started with blogging, and next time I'll have to be more careful with my language. Apologies.
I agree that VC funding is not the only path to stressful business, although it certainly helps a lot. In this sense, VC is a part of a larger problem - people's tendency to take on more risk than they should. I dare say that if more people lived and did business within their means, we'd all be calmer, have less bankruptcies, and maybe even less divorces.
It is very easy to read your post and come away with the feeling that being an entrepreneur is necessarily stressful, and that just isn't the case. It starts being stressful when you can't meet your obligations, and that mostly happens when your ability to meet your obligations is heavily dependent on circumstances you can't control - circumstances like relying on outside money.
Is VC better than loans from family? Most definitely, because by taking money from someone who fully appreciates their potential losses, everyone gets to be less emotional about the whole thing.
Still, I believe that by not taking any outside money, or extracting a heavy price from yourself, you get a shot at a significantly calmer variant of Entrepreneurship, and that's something people should know.
Mark, the method David says, purely bootstrapped, keep your day job until its profitable, no outside investors even family.... is the safer road and avoids many of the pitfalls you outline. Of course, you still have to worry about the market changing, losing a client, your cost structure vs your competitors, and the like. All the things that your current boss worries about, you get to inherit.
But also the VC, angel, or other investor method gives you cash up front to put off some worries on day 1, but as Mark says, when you hire someone, you have to look them in the face knowing you only have 6 months cash in the bank.
With the bootstrap method, you only have 1 week cash in the bank.
Both can be stressful. I guess having other people depending on you besides yourself is less stressful in some ways, but also less (0) chance of a home run exit.
I agree that VC funding is not the only path to stressful business, although it certainly helps a lot. In this sense, VC is a part of a larger problem - people's tendency to take on more risk than they should. I dare say that if more people lived and did business within their means, we'd all be calmer, have less bankruptcies, and maybe even less divorces.
It is very easy to read your post and come away with the feeling that being an entrepreneur is necessarily stressful, and that just isn't the case. It starts being stressful when you can't meet your obligations, and that mostly happens when your ability to meet your obligations is heavily dependent on circumstances you can't control - circumstances like relying on outside money.
Is VC better than loans from family? Most definitely, because by taking money from someone who fully appreciates their potential losses, everyone gets to be less emotional about the whole thing.
Still, I believe that by not taking any outside money, or extracting a heavy price from yourself, you get a shot at a significantly calmer variant of Entrepreneurship, and that's something people should know.