Given this situation, you could potentially raise money from your users, which would be the best of both trade-offs you seem to have. They're not going to strong-arm you into work 120 hour weeks, can appreciate sane and modest returns, and you can do whatever you like. On the other hand, one thing they DON'T have is experience keeping companies from dying. Your institutional investors have that in spades. They've seen dozens of companies die, and they've seen why and exactly how. The reason they need to push you for an outsize return, at the expense of your comfort, is to make up for these. Your outcome and end game is good. Rather than ask if anyone's life ever became more comfortable, perhaps you should ask whether anyone regretted their exit, getting paid off after working hard and driven in part by an institutional investor?<p>As far as raising money from your users (which I don't recommend, but would unlock what you seem to see as the best of both worlds), I literally got an email about a service I use doing this today. When I got the email I didn't click the "Get shares today" button from the email (which wasn't spam and which I read carefully), but just now I did re-open that email and clicked the button to see where the "get shares now" went, as part of writing this comment.<p>Where they sent me was: <a href="https://www.seedinvest.com" rel="nofollow">https://www.seedinvest.com</a> and which presumably you can find that coverage easily online (Forbes covered it, they claimed).<p>Personally, I don't know how I feel about having users invest. Regulation D and the idea of accredited investors had existed for very, very good reason. But there are examples for you to follow. I'm not sure if I can recommend it. It doesn't seem to be a good direction for most companies, and leads to poor outcomes for companies and for users. It also seems very ripe for scams, which a high level of transparency would help you prevent. At any rate it's an option. Personally, I recommend going with the institutional investor.