As a bootstrapper with 100% equity in company that just passed $1M YOY revenue and should hit $2M this year, I read these articles on HN and cringe. To me, it would be a special kind of hell to have 40 investors to answer to, no less in a company under $1M revenue. Seems to work for some founders to get rich quick but for god sakes I don't envy that position.
I think 'answer to' is probably looking at it wrong, at least for good investors. They are there to help you when needed, to give you advice. They are not the hall monitor.
However I've never had investors either, so perhaps I'm wrong. Given that she says she communicates with 75% of them at least once a month - that would indeed suck if the relationship was as you described.
In any case, would be much better to be answering to 40 paying B2B customers. I'd imagine if founder is not able to get focused on that, there won't be another round.
20 years of experience with startups, investors forcing bad decisions on the startup caused the majority of failures (about %60). Founder conflicts, and market timing caused the rest.
There a lot of pressure when you have 40+ people expecting you making them a 10x + return. But raising money is something that startups think they must do these days.
