You&#x27;re not rebutting me, but rather proving my point about how skewed definitions of &quot;success&quot; harm equity crowdfunding investors.<p>There is in fact very little value of a &quot;going concern&quot; to outside investors. These &quot;going concerns&quot; are successes for people <i>directly involved</i>, but are not successes for investors. Consider that distributions are the normal way partners and LLC members get paid, and also a huge source of lawsuits, because when management is just a small fraction of ownership, their incentives are to minimize distributions.<p>You will find few people on HN more pro-boostrap and anti-VC than me. My last company bootstrapped and ran 10+ years. We&#x27;re bootstrapping this one. I agree with everything Pinboard says about investment versus funding from customer revenue.<p>But those arguments only have merit as long as you <i>aren&#x27;t taking outside money to build the business</i>. As soon as you take outside money, your business plan must make sense <i>to the investors</i>.