That $18K only covered our expenses up till Demo Day. The $100K we raised after that allowed us to get to launch and then profitability. Also, it's not like we could predict that it was all going to work out. From our perspective everything was a risk up until it wasn't.

Having the choice to not take on debt and work with people who'd done it before made way more sense especially considering we hadn't written a line of code when we got into YC and had no idea what we were doing. YC paid us to start our company and gave us amazing advice that kept us from making a lot of bad decisions. The loan option isn't exactly a great deal by comparison.

Plus, we were not from Silicon Valley at the time. We quit our jobs because we hated working in a fucking cubicle. It was probably irrational, but easy for some people was completely unacceptable to us.

Thanks for clarifying! I just wanted to know those additional reasons.