When small community banks disappeared (as nikanj points out), who would have financed these "sensible old-school companies with 10% per year growth and 15% profit/revenue ratios", that didn't make them riskier.
Meanwhile your subtext is that you just don't want to raise money. You spent a lot of words pinning it on how it's bad for VC's but all I asked you is what term sheet you'd write for yourself if you closed an hour later. None: you don't want investment. That's fine!
Banks do fund businesses like this, all the time. The difference is that they fund with debt instruments, not equity. You're obligated to pay them back and can't deliberately manage your business to avoid the obligation (chances are, you'll have to co-sign the obligation personally).
If all you're arguing for is broader availability of lines of credit, by all means, keep asking for that. But that's never been what startup investors provided.
In 2018 more than 1,800 startups are fantastic equity investments at a time when they're printing money, and VC's are idiots for writing 1,800 first funding round checks to startups total, nationwide. I couldn't believe how low that number is. You said, "well yeah they're printing money but it's the wrong kind of money". You would have called Airbnb the wrong kind of startup and you would have stood there and told me VC's are totally right not to invest in them. 9 years later here we are, $31B+ valuation.
It couldn't raise its seed round and it's obviously because VC's are idiots who are paid to lose money. It sold cereal on national TV instead. That's a fact.
My original point was just that VC's don't write enough checks. thanks for the exchange.
But this just isn't true. In addition to the fact that companies fail a lot more often than operators recognize, there's the fact that a company winding down after years of solid but unspectacular returns is also a failed investment. Companies don't have to lose product/market fit to "go out of business". All they have to do is fail to compete with the operators other options. Eventually, somebody else will outbid the company for key talent.
Slow-burn companies can keep going for decades before this happens. It's not bad to be a slow-burn company! I've spent most of my career in them! But to take money from LPs, you have to have a story about how you can pay them a return.