This comes from the author of this fantastic book, highly recommended: http://www.amazon.com/Bootstrap-Lessons-Learned-Building-Suc...

Historical oneupmanship quickly turns into an infinite regression:

http://www.amazon.com/Bootstrap-Lessons-Learned-Building-Suc...

(Edit: the Amazon page doesn't make clear that the book, though published in 2001, is about a desktop software company from the early PC days.)

I'm a big fan of bootstrapping, and I highly recommend the following books:

http://www.amazon.com/Bootstrapping-Your-Business-Successful-Company/dp/1593373872/

http://www.amazon.com/Bootstrap-Lessons-Learned-Building-Successful/dp/0971187304/

And here's a good intro article to bootstrapping:

http://www.inc.com/magazine/20020201/23855.html