Ask HN: Did anyone's life ever gotten more comfortable after accepting funding?

We have an unfair advantage in a fast growing market and could now get outside capital for this. As an alternative we could just keep rolling with our little team, scale like we already do and make good money and don't blow this whole thing up like our investors would want us to do. We will be financially independent either way in a few months. We just want to be happy and don't have a more busy life. We don't have experience with outside investments. Is a scenario in which we use the funding to hire a great team that more or less replaces us unrealistic? Sure, its nice to see our project at the next level but only if this doesn't make life even more busy.

This mentality is not compatible with venture capital.

You want a life-style business. And that is absolutely fine. Investors want you to be very busy, scale the business and build a large company. Is the only way they can make their money back.

(I work for a venture fund in Dubai)

Raising money will, without a doubt, make your lives more busy.

I've never heard of anyone successfully using investor money to hire people which replace them. Even so, hiring people is incredibly time consuming, and you will have to manage them.

If you're profitable and your goal is to reach financial independence, in this market I would not raise. If your goal is to make as much money as possible and lose all sense of work life balance, then raising money may be for you.

You sound like you're in a good position to begin with. Taking money is giving a bit of your soul for it. You'll end up infinitely more busy than you already are. Reach financial independence and keep at it as you are. It sounds like you are already making it.

Investor goals and founder goals are rarely aligned. If you want to go for world domination and would rather risk everything to achieve that and possibly end up with nothing at all then go the investor route. That will increase your chances of ending up with nothing, but it will (perversely) also increase your chances of success.

If you're already happy at your current level just grow it organically and don't look back.

Remember: happiness is the ability to be content with what you already have, not with what you could do.

I wrote about this years ago, shameless blog post plug:

http://jacquesmattheij.com/three-roads-to-the-top-of-the-mou...

Best of luck, whichever path you decide to take.