[happyfeet]

Excellent points. Interesting to note that most startup businesses that go through traditional investor route exit via acquisitions or getting acquired to get returns for investors (or IPO).

I had this conversation with an angel investor with our team, when we said we are interested in staying in business for a long time and build our user base & let them speak for us. The investor said you need to take a call whether you want a 'lifestyle' business or you want to take the other route to build scale fast. Haven't heard from him yet. :) We were not convinced that we should throw lot of advertisement money, get lot of eyeballs, convert 1 or 2% into sales & just grow.

So, the question is: what kind of commitment can we give to our customers to assure them that a B2B business here is to stay & serve them. The purpose is to "exist" not to get acquired.

Would love to hear examples & stories of businesses that have managed to do the balancing act.