I took a class at the University of Michigan called "Entrepreneurial Business Fundamentals for Scientists & Engineers" that goes into a lot of the mechanics behind different investment avenues and the risks/rewards of venture capital.
If you ever intend to seek venture capital, it would do you well to play around with the numbers in a capitalization table. You can find decent ones online from a search. What you'll likely realize is that venture capital is only good for the founders when things go perfect -- that is, when the business does nothing but grow and never has a low-growth moment. If you ever have a "down-round" (a round where the valuation of the company is lower than the previous), that will sabotage basically everything. Therefore, if you don't believe your product is going to be a complete revolutionary slam-dunk, please save yourself and the VCs pain and misery and seek means of finance elsewhere.
Another thing to remember is that VCs typically project out for a 7-10 year exit. If you don't do that, they consider it a failure on their end. Bloodhound got their Series A in 1999 and sold in 2011, so the VCs were likely in failure-mitigation mode by that point.
If you ever intend to seek venture capital, it would do you well to play around with the numbers in a capitalization table. You can find decent ones online from a search. What you'll likely realize is that venture capital is only good for the founders when things go perfect -- that is, when the business does nothing but grow and never has a low-growth moment. If you ever have a "down-round" (a round where the valuation of the company is lower than the previous), that will sabotage basically everything. Therefore, if you don't believe your product is going to be a complete revolutionary slam-dunk, please save yourself and the VCs pain and misery and seek means of finance elsewhere.
Another thing to remember is that VCs typically project out for a 7-10 year exit. If you don't do that, they consider it a failure on their end. Bloodhound got their Series A in 1999 and sold in 2011, so the VCs were likely in failure-mitigation mode by that point.