Free falling costs and website funding

The trend towards small, efficient startups like Menuism, 37Signals, and the Robot Co-op and a host of other small, unfunded or minimally funded startups is forcing venture capitalists to scrounge for non-traditional investments (halfway down the page).

ALTERNATIVE INVESTMENTS The blog VentureBeat has been following the venture capitalists scrounging for alternatives to technology investments as free-falling costs have drastically cut the need for outside financing. This week, Eric Eldon noted that Kleiner Perkins took part in a $50 million investment in YesPPG, a shirt factory in Shanghai (venturebeat.com).

There is no doubt that it takes money to start a company (although it doesn’t take much for a web-site!), but one has to wonder if it really takes $20 million+ to provide an outstanding experience to consumers like our massively funded competitors seem to believe.