* Several million dollars in inventory
* A 20 region global direct sales team, likely each consisting of a 130k base account manager and 2 90k-100k SE's
* Several million dollars a year in "marketing", including 20-50k/mo in PR firms (note: we got more press hits over the last 4 years than they did), 100k+ in Gartner subscriptions, magazine ads, and 4-5 $100k+ conference visits a year.
* 4-5 120k+ overhead head count for middle management, like a VP/Marketing, Director/Marketing, and Sr Mgr/Marketing, or 3 layers of engineering management.
* A ridiculously outsized engineering department with 1:1 or worse dev/QA.
I'm sure I'm missing some other ludicrous VC-funded-company expense than a 50+MM funded company goes through (I've been through that firsthand), but all I'll say here is, there's nothing I think they spent that money on that I want for my company now.
We didn't know enough in '05. We've watched 5 other companies launch the product we were planning to launch. One of them eventually took in over $80MM (!) in funding. The market hasn't panned out. We got to watch that all play out, see what worked and didn't work, and retool, all while building up a profitable line of business.
Just another reason, besides "it makes you work really hard", why not getting VC can be a win.