Here's a massively oversimplified and harsh view, but maybe useful to contrast different ends of the spectrum:
1. Get VC style investment, become unicorn, pay yourself 500-1000k a year immediately, ride the roller-coaster. Ending = derail ? feel burned, but have some dosh to show for it, possibly swallowing feelings of contempt towards investors due to overriding decision that forced you to watch your baby burn : Homerun, now watch everything you worked for be monetised into a souleless husk of it's innocent beginnings, you can't help but feel you sold out, quit once you had enough, dosh to show for it.
2. No investors, go the hard way, grow slow. If you make the right decisions, you will be able to afford to gradually increase your salary to something modest, and eventually perhaps even "good", you maintain full control of your product and peace of mind of ownership and decision making. OR, you keep making the wrong decisions, you burn through all your money, possibly burn through your enthusiasm too if you don't know when to quit.
#1 can be risky for the soul 2# can be risky for the pocket
If you aren't very materialistic and don't want expensive toys, #2 can be quite attractive because of the sanity you are able to create for your everyday worklife... the other thing is that just because it isn't a 100B business idea, doesn't mean it isn't a good business idea, it might just have a different scale, maybe it can't pay 10k workers and a pile of investors, but it could pay pay 10 or 100 people with the same salary, minus all the corporate BS... it just takes longer to get there. VCs want relatively quick money, but that is only applicable to certain ideas that can reach a certain scale, even then it comes at a non monetary cost that can be hard to stomach.