If you re in it for the long haul, and you ve got deep enough pockets that you can stay in the game long enough, content is going to win the game. But you have to build a product you really believe in, and of course, you have to strike a good balance between content and marketing. Friends and family are people who have an emotional relationship with you, and they re less concerned with the actual rate of return on their investment than they are with the fact that they believe in you as a person. On the contrary, investment banks and venture capital funds are the most return-oriented. They want to see you hit a home-run, and are only interested in investing if you do.
Strategic partners have yet a different set of interests.
They re not as interested in the IPO or having you acquired for cash the exit scenario as much as what they can gain strategically with a relationship with you. We wanted partners with a vision of the long haul, partners who loved publishing, and wanted our products because they were interested in our products. For that, we re looking much more at the venture capital community than the strategic partner community. The reason for that is, given the current fundraising IPO environment, we see e-learn as a business that could be made public or sold very quickly for large multiples. In that case, we really want the investment bankers breathing down our backs and driving us to the exit scenario faster.