[jhonovich]

The bigger lesson here is not about hard vs easy but the dangerous facade that many startups create. As Joe says, it forces bad decision hurting the real, underlying business. I have seen that myself in VC funded companies I worked for. The company was too focused on creating the appearance of success (which they excelled at) even though it was fairly clearly undermining our ability to develop a real business.

[beat]

That's what scares me about ever going the VC route. It makes the company vulnerable to the vagaries of not just product and customers, but a third party with interests that don't necessarily align.

edit: To phrase it another way, I don't ever want to be in a position where making investors happy is more important than making customers happy.