I should preface today’s column by saying that I’ve never started my own business nor held an officer-level position in one. I’ve never invested or even had the opportunity to invest my money in someone’s company. The only perspective I can speak from is that of seven years’ experience as a grunt in more than one startup. One folded and the verdict’s still out on a couple. So the following opinion is completely biased, mostly uninformed, and more than a little bitter: investors suck.

What could be wrong with having someone else finance your dream? Several things. First, that money comes at a price. The specifics of the deal may vary, but your company is taking on an obligation when it accepts all that cash. It could be a stake in the company, a piece of the profits, or a combination of the above. What it boils down to is control. A third party now has a say in the way you run and grow your company. They may not know the first thing about the technical aspects of what you do. They certainly don’t know the names of anyone whose title doesn’t start with a C and end with an O.

If you have no investors to feed — and I’m not counting your rich uncle, or your buddy who helps out because he likes you — your first obligation (besides your customers) is to your employees. Once you take a check from the big dogs, though, they get your primary loyalty in return. And don’t think the people working for you don’t notice those dollar signs in your eyes. Where I work, we like to turn the fluorescent overhead lights off because the natural light from outside is so much nicer to work by. That lasted for a few days, and then HR started going behind us and turning them back on. That sunlight just looked unprofessional when the investors dropped by for a tour.

Assuming you’ve taken the bait, do you know what the real hook is? You can’t trust an investor as far as you can throw his checkbook. When the fiscal year winds down and the budget is maxed out, do you think they’re going to cancel their Christmas (excuse me, holiday) party so they can fund you for another month? Your responsibility is to them, but theirs is to their ROI. If your business plan isn’t paying off on their time frame, tough. Investors have very little incentive to stick it out if you have a run of bad luck. “Never throw good money after bad” applies to business as well as poker. Or, if your angel is less than scrupulous, consider this: he could be letting your company tank on purpose. When it comes time for the fire sale, guess who’s there to kindly buy up your assets and IP at a rock-bottom price? We call that guy a vulture capitalist.

In the Church of the Startup Junkie, the One True Path is that of the bootstrapper. Fund your business yourself. No outsiders, no investors, no loans. Don’t spend a dime on your business that you haven’t first earned. It may sound completely crazy, but consider this truism:

You’ll be profitable from day one.

If that doesn’t get your entrepreneurial gears turning, nothing will. Venture capital causes many more problems than it solves. The dot-com bubble taught us that. How many technology companies in the ’90s could say they were debt-free? How many of those are still around? Of the ones that are still around, how many still have the garage spirit that made them such great places to work? If you’re financing your business yourself, the only people you answer to are your customers and your employees — the people you should be spending your time and money on.

You might be broke for a while. You may need to keep a day job or some contract business going on the side until your idea can sustain itself. The pressure to make your business pay off will be enormous. But that’s a good thing. It encourages you to do better, faster. And the spoils of that victory will go into no one’s pocket but your own.