What a narrow definition of success

I couldn't agree more. I've built 5 successful businesses that all required entirely different definitions of success (and more that haven't made it). All of them were bootstrapped and were the product of partnering with exceptionally talented people.

Fair point, they didn't scale, and i'm working on that with my main project, however they've added multi-millions to the economy annually, employed dozens, and those employees have gone on to open their own businesses (dozens of them). I'm damn proud of that impact on the local economy, and I'm not rich from it, not by a long shot (disclaimer, I'm flat broke).

Investors want to participate in high growth, not necessarily high impact. Some can do both, (paypal mafia, I'm looking at you), but most only succeed in making all the participants a healthy living, training the next generation of entrepreneurs, and keeping the money flowing in the local economy instead of to a corporate head office.

I think those are pretty good outcomes.