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Comment by paxys | Hacker News Reader

The article skips over the obvious point that each investor = an additional chunk of your company you have given away. Cash from 40+ different individuals might be essential to get your company off the ground, but realistically it probably isn't.

In the current environment there is an unlimited number of investors with large pockets and a tiny population of capable founders. Use that to your advantage as much as you can.

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You have not 'given away' a chunk of your company. What you will have is starting capital and that can be the difference between getting off the ground or not starting at all. Capital is the lifeblood of early stage start-ups, you either need a revenue stream, your own capital or you will need investors. There aren't that many alternatives.

If you are happy with slower growth, then of course you don't need to get outside investment.

See:

https://jacquesmattheij.com/three-roads-to-the-top-of-the-mo...

An oldie, but still quite applicable to the start-up scene today.

The other framing of the problem is: If you're going to raise a fixed amount of $X, is it better to raise it from a large number of angels (each writing smaller checks), or a small number of firms (each writing larger checks)?

I'd go for "larger number of participants," for the reasons I mentioned.

Sure, but that is unrealistic. If I get an angel investor who then says "hey my buddy wants to get in as well", they aren't going to agree to split their own share by half.

This is definitely anecdata, but sometimes they will. In particular, I've definitely been asked to reduce my own allocation to let someone else in.

Same here. As well as splits of tickets between related investors to spread risk.

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