...not a single entrepreneur received venture capital funding by submitting a business plan “over the transom.” By contrast, about 5 percent of entrepreneurs wh

...not a single entrepreneur received venture capital funding by submitting a business plan “over the transom.” By contrast, about 5 percent of entrepreneurs who knew the venture capitalist or gained a personal introduction received funding Another data point for 'It's not what you know, but who you know.' Many of the companies that survived the dot-com bust did so by ignoring the prevailing “Get Big Fast” business model, Mr. Kirsch explains. Get Big Fast said that an Internet company should identify a market early and grow as quickly as possible, to shut out all competitors. So that means that most of those that survived were not VC-backed.