I was talking with a potential startup and a seasoned entrepreneur, Tom S., recently.  As we talked about this deal's strategy, Tom recommended that they consider a customer-funded strategy.  He said that he felt that a customer funded business was the best kind of business.  Finally he said, 'most people don't realize that, eventually, every deal is a customer funded deal."

He's right and I thought it was a perfectly crisp insight.  One of the key issues right before the bubble started to burst at the turn of the millenium, was that companies seemed to believe that if they raised enough money, they had arrived.  They never focused on getting to customer funding!