It gets messy. As are all startups to one extent or another. You ride out the highs and lows and keep moving forwards. I wasn't trying to say that going the VC route is necessarily easier or better (I hope I made that clear), just that there are different upsides and downsides to each, one isn't objectively better than the other.

More on the messy parts: https://www.amazon.com/Messy-Middle-Finding-Through-Hardest/...