It's hard to grow a business without going the conventional SV route and getting VC funding. Unless you have a revolutionary product, the bigger competition will likely stomp over you unless you have resources to grow your team and product and marketing. Or if you are comfortable with a small market share but a profitable one.
Not saying it is impossible, but just hard. I know a few SaaS out there like Roninapp and Reamaze that like Mailchimp are not VC funded and are growing well and are run by a small but effective team, but the question is would startups like these benefit from funding and be in a better position with regards to growth and user base than without vc funding?
More often than not when startups receive funding they move away from satisfying the customers to making investors happy. As the company starts to hire, get a nice office, increase spend on things like office perks, ads, marketing etc while it might contribute to growth it doesnt necessarily work well for the end user. You go from lean to bloat more often than not. I guess that depends on how you manage resources but it isnt exactly easy with investors breathing down your neck
I have a company that is bootstrapped and while there are well funded competitors out there, i'm perfectly fine with my startup running lean and being profitable, albeit slowly. At least I am my own boss and I answer to myself, and that in my world is 'making it'.