[tlogan]

I was always under impression that lifestyle business is a startup which cannot or is not willing raise money.

Meaning sometimes even if your business is profitable (like my little business), VC will not invest since it lacks growth potentials.

So business goes like this:

   "find business model" -> "optimize business model" -> "scale your business"

Sometimes, in the first step you find a business model which is profitable but it can optimized only on small scale or it cannot scale.

[fleitz]

Raising money does not necessarily mean taking VC or giving up equity.

Have you ever thought that VCs have a vested interest in perpetuating the idea that to be a "real" business you need to give up equity in order to raise money?