[TrackerFF]

It is absolutely possible to start a business without any serious loans, or at the least with "normal" business loans which do not involve any ownership. Hundreds of thousands of small and medium-sized businesses do this, and have done it for decades.

But the are some severe limitations:

1) You may not scale as fast as you'd want to

2) You may be competing against businesses that ARE funded, and can undercut you

3) The setup period may be very long. If you're gonna fund it all yourself, that may take year and year of saving money. This if obviously a huge problem if you've discovered a niche with lots of potential RIGHT NOW.

The biggest difference between a typical startup business, vs "classic" type of business, is the speed and scale.

(With that said, I don't think the race to bottom by funding/VC arms-race is a good thing.)