"Subscribe to keep reading", when written by a rando on the internet, doesn't work.

I subscribed! To be fair though, I'll probably ignore all future emails.

The article is fine, nothing majorly new except focus on the person you raise from, rather than the firm which is advice I don't hear as often.

Better yet, don’t take VC money. VC is a cancer that has destroyed our industry.

Agreed. About 12 years ago, when I was starting up a company, I went through a few different interviews with VCs. In addition to being severely unimpressed with them, it just didn't seem worth the effort. The amount of money they were willing to put in, in ratio to the effort that their growth requirements would take seemed borderline abusive.

I suppose if you are creating something that requires massive amounts of capital to get started, it may be a viable choice. But anything else that can grow on its own and be profitable, your odds of succeeding are higher without VC money.

Not just one industry, the whole economy.

Some reasons to involve a VC no longer exist. You will get an adviser and someone with a network and skin in the game, both strong reasons - but thinking of some others:

There was a time when capital was needed to hire an army of devs, rack a ton of servers, and when startup patterns were less established & more experimental.

Now you can use open source libraries, get advice from podcasts, build your CRUD with AI, and follow well worn paths to success. Amazing what small focused teams can do!