Would you take VC investments?

It always seemed to me like bootstrapping and raising VC funds were diametrical opposites -- the default choice for people on IH is taking no funding at all, and startup accelerators prepare you for raising as much money as possible.

Bootstrapping is natural when starting something as a side project, and the best validation is when people start to pay you money. You do not need millions of dollars to prove that a good idea works, or to grow it. But we're all effectively seed-funding our projects, either explicitly or implicitly through spent time.

Maybe the problem is not with outside investment per se, but with the practice of raising at huge valuations and with subsequently huge expectations for hyper-growth. Interestingly, Paul Graham wrote an essay about this in 2005 just before starting YC:

"The huge investments themselves are something founders would dislike, if they realized how damaging they can be. VCs don't invest $x million because that's the amount you need, but because that's the amount the structure of their business requires them to invest."

Taking small investments from people you trust may be the best of both worlds. Personally, having some savings allowed me to commit to indie hacking like nothing else would have -- and outside investments may be the scalable and lasting version of that.

What do you think? Would you take outside investments for your projects when needed?