The Fatal Pinch
I've never been one to lean on investors as a solution to problems.  Its far better to build your company on the basis of the immense amounts of help and good you are doing your customers.  If you're not doing that, and its not a principle focus for how you're going to produce revenues, then its not business but rather an academic experiment.<p>Investment is very important, though, for various big-growth reasons, but mostly to extend reach beyond what the business-as-organism is capable of attaining independently.  Better to grow strong by remembering who really pays the bills: true customers.<p>Too many startups conflate investor/customer in strange ways before they realize there is actually a relevance to how much of the company is your company.