Unlike the record companies who go after their customers in court, I doubt the VC’s will sue the startups for not taking their money, but I wonder if they’ll actively try to fight the changes being brought on by lower startup costs, a limited set of exist strategies and lower overall ROI investments.

I’m CEO of a startup that’s about10 months old and about 6 or so months into development with a product that’s in beta and about to go 1.0. I’ve been talking to VC’s, but I haven’t been really pursuing it. We run cheap. Our monthly burn rate is 4 figures (yea.. four). Co-lo charges for our servers and enough to pay rent for some of our younger/less solvent guys is all it really takes to keep the doors open, at least for now.

The main reason we’re looking at potential VC money is because there are bunch of guys behind us who, with big cash infusions from VC’s, could leapfrog us.

We’re not sure we want VC money, but we’re reasonably sure we’re going to need it.

Why?

Because of the threat of VC money in other people’s (competitors) hands. Kinda circular isn’t it?