My co-founder and I bootstrapped our SaaS startup for 18 months before taking any outside money, and I still wonder if that was the right call. We grew slower than competitors who raised early, but we kept full control and avoided the pressure to chase metrics that don't matter. Now that we're profitable, I see how much harder it is to raise a seed round after proving revenue — investors ask why we need them at all. Is bootstrap-first really the smarter path for most founders, or are we just romanticizing the struggle?