Depends. If you have a business model that means new customers becomes profitable for you sufficiently predictably and quickly then funding sudden growth with bank loans is often doable even for quite high-risk businesses.

If your bank isn't prepared to and you're struggling to handle the growth and you don't want to find an investor, maybe it's worth considering raising prices for new customers until you find a balance that works for you (or a balance that makes your bank reconsider)

One of the tradeoffs of not taking VC funding is often accepting that your growth is likely to be slower for all kinds of reasons, including sometimes being forced to intentionally slow it to a manageable level.

There is also cost cutting. I personally experienced very high hosting bills unexpectedly and then spent a month changing my infrastructure to run for almost free again. I personally prefer these optimization challenges over borrowing money. Self-reliance is important for some people.

Not necessarily, you could:

1) get a loan - with good numbers, banks are easy(er) to persuade

2) put up a waitlist for new users (induce FOMO)

3) increase prices

Of course, these are antithetical to the VC mantra of maximum growth at all costs. But what's best for them is not always what's best for you.