It's cliche because it's true: capital is the lifeblood of your business. There's just no way around it. If you don't have the capital to fund your operations, you can't execute your vision or scale your startup.
Of course you can bootstrap, but that only works for certain types of businesses. Startups require talent, equipment and other costs that sweat equity can't always solve. The playbook for running a successful startup suggests that founders raise money from venture capital firms (VCs). Yet there are significant trade-offs with taking venture capital.
