Build a Business, Not an Exit Strategy. This is a challenging read, but I recommend you read it anyway. It documents the extreme longshot of ever getting venture capital, and does something called an "expected value" analysis. It turns out, you can to pretty well with hard work over time and the expected value of this will be far higher the remote possibility of ever getting venture capital. Check this one out.

Build a Business, Not an Exit Strategy.  This is a challenging read, but I recommend you read it anyway.  It documents the extreme longshot of ever getting venture capital, and does something called an "expected value" analysis.  It turns out, you can to pretty well with hard work over time and the expected value of this will be far higher the remote possibility of ever getting venture capital.  Check this one out.

How many people reading this have a startup? How many people reading this are trying to raise capital for that startup?
Let me just lay out the odds for you. Only 1% of all companies will ever raise VC. And, of those who do raise institutional capital, only 2% of those companies will have an exit north of $100 million. And if that exit does come, the founders will own, most likely, one-third or less of their own company by that time. Because, by the time you get to an exit of that size, the founders have been diluted down by 3 or 4 rounds of capital. This means that the founders have a 0.02% chance of personally taking home $30 million. And if you have co-founders? Divide that number by 2 or 3. Now, you may be saying “but $30 million is a lot of money” or “hell, $15 million is a lot of money” But that is not the way you should evaluate the risk / reward proposition in this scenario. You have to look at the expected value of that $15 million...