tumblr visitor stats    November 1, 2010  How much money should
you raise?  Clearly, there is no one right answer. It depends
upon the entrepreneur, his/her experience starting companies,
the nature of the business, the target market, whether it is a
technology or a business model play, the financing environment,
and other variables.  If it is possible to get to market with a
salable product and demonstrate real traction, then by all means
bootstrap and only raise money if you need to do so to
accelerate growth - financing for sales, account management,
operations, etc. When this happens it is a rare and beautiful
thing; keep the lion’s share of equity for yourself - because
you can. The relative value-add of any investor in this
circumstance is marginal if you know how to grow and scale a
business. If not, getting a good investor or investors behind
you can be extremely helpful and potentially life-changing.  In
most other circumstances, where a pure bootstrap approach won’t
get you there, raising enough to