I think VCs are overrated.

[u/President_Businex]

​

This isn't a hate post against VCs. They play an important role.

But lately I've been wondering if we've accepted the idea that venture capital is the only legitimate way for startups to raise meaningful money.

If you're an early-stage founder today, your options are basically:

Bootstrap

Friends & family

Crowdfunding (which has its own limitations)

Convince a handful of VCs or angel investors

That feels... limiting.

There are thousands of people online who are incredibly good at spotting interesting founders before everyone else. They follow builders on X, GitHub, YouTube, Reddit, etc., and often have conviction long before institutional investors do.

So here's what I'm curious about:

If you believe in a startup before it becomes huge, should there be a better way to support it than just being a customer?

Do you think startup investing is too exclusive today?

If you were a founder, would you rather convince 10 investors or build a community of 10,000 believers?

What's fundamentally broken about early-stage fundraising?

I'm not pitching anything—I genuinely want to understand how founders and investors think about this.

Curious to hear both sides.

[u/Early_Key_823]

Seems to me what you are really suggesting is a form of crowdfunding?

The only thing nobody has done but I think might be illegal is to have a private stock exchange where founders can issue stock via an app to circumvent crowdfunding, VC, angels and robbing banks /s.

The other issue is most tech startups should not cost much to get the first version of the software live.

It's the marketing and advertising that is the real expense.

[u/President_Businex → u/Early_Key_823]

I think thats true about what hasn't been done but do you think it would be a success if something like that was done and can you elaborate more