[reducesuffering]

How do you decide between raising money and bootstrapping (like Mailchimp acquired for $12b today did)? I think the typical response is whether you want to be a bigger $1b+ company or die, or just slowly see where it takes you by the revenue of your customers. But how do you estimate the eventual potential/TAM of your startup/business as something that needs funding to grow ASAP? You can't really trust VC's opinions as they're self-interested.