We knew, even then, having watched how Data General financed itself, that you wanted to generate two things when you're looking for money. One is a sense of exclusivity, saying, "This is a very special kind of deal and not everybody is going to get into it." And secondly, a sense of urgency, so you can get people to make a decision.

But it is wiser for entrepreneurs to seek funding which will last them 12 to 18 months in competitive financing environments. This does not mean that financing for this period of time need necessarily be secured in one payment up front.

Finally, we don’t believe in ranges in the fundraising process. When someone says they are raising $5 million to $7 million, our first question is: “Is it $5 million or $7 million?”

Financial resources for the new initiatives must be separated. As our core business continued to decline, it became very difficult to justify spending money on the new initiative. The biggest reason was that the core product had clear and immediate ROIs on any incremental investment, but the new product was an unknown, and thus had no measurable RO