I have explored just about every way to build and fund a company, including the VC route. The 100% user-supported path is by far the most fun (to me).
It seems like there's an art to targeting a niche market segment that VC funded companies won't be able to compete in because the "gold vein" isn't large enough to support the hypergrowth and expected returns. OTOH if you plan to keep your team small then you can just set up shop and stay lean.
I've been building a product that integrates with Obsidian (hopefully ready to share soon), and it has been the highlight of my career to design and build software with these principles and to not be worried about balancing misaligned incentives.
Thanks for building a great product -- I'm super happy to subscribe and support y'all. <3