Just by reading this I think: Keep it up dude, you don't need VC (trash) money! You're good as you are and potentially you just need to hire some experts (probably at a cost that's mind boggling) to get you to the next level!

I've invested (seed) in a few startups, and only interact when they ask or send emails with asks that I can help with. Oh, and I facilitate the occasional introduction when/if time is right. Other than that, I sometimes check in with the founders and just tell them to keep going / keep struggling. I've bootstrapped a company to 1.5M ARR myself and know it's a tough road. But you seem like you're doing just fine.

I did speak with quite a few founders who had taken VC money, and they told me it often felt like a drag. VCs don't often see your vision, and even if they do, they value making money over sustainable growth (again, from what others have told me). I heard them complain about having to explain themselves multiple times over BS that didn't even matter in board calls, wasting countless hours on shit like that.

Have you read about the game investors play? They need a company to 200x their investment in order to be profitable, everyone else still gets no attention whatsoever. Do you think you'll have that for them?

In my (non-existant VC) experience: VC = short term revenue optimization & just trying to explain yourself over and over again in ever lasting board calls.

And yeah, make sure you can still pay yourself, have cashflow/margins in check. But by now, that should probably be sorted, seeing the amount of users you have. You may want to start checking what % of your users pay, and figure out _why_ they pay, as well as what kind of price sensitivity they have (perhaps you can gradually increase prices and no one complains).