[threeseed]

It's not a binary choice.

You can bootstrap until Series A at which point you can decide what direction to go. Either a successful lifestyle business or a bigger VC backed business. But you can't choose if you take YC/Seed.

And you are more likely as a founder to acquire life changing wealth with a lifestyle business than a VC one.

[tptacek]

Why can't you choose if you go to YC? Plenty of YC companies have not raised A rounds.

[skeeter2020]

voluntarily not raised A rounds, or been unable to though?

[tptacek]

Voluntarily not raised A rounds. What do people think happens if you don't raise after YC? YC isn't a conventional VC firm. They don't take board seats. They don't need you to shoot the moon (they'd like it if you do, but they're not structurally dependent on it). They are in fact pretty chill about you going on to bootstrap after your batch wraps up.

[brianwawok]

True, but a big reason to use YC is for the fundraising contacts. If you never go to A, you gave away a lot of your company for not a lot of money.