optimal -- yes, and this was my longstanding position. I have had a lot of bugs put in my ear like "if you just took some funding, this could explode very fast, speed of acquiring customers will be key". I fall somewhere in the middle: I think it's a good idea to take a _small_ amount of funding to get some sales hounds on board, because I can't do sales by myself and I'm not a fantastic salesman. The product has been winning so far based on its own merit -- competition is really terrible, and people are hearing about it word of mouth and contacting me.

I'm sure you know this better than I do. There are just so many stories of companies that implode before their time, or get devoured when the piranhas come around.

Anyway, congratulations and good luck!

re: business plan money --> Customer base is growing fast. This business has a big hardware component to it -- one that requires remote devices at customer sites and lots of servers. (Think 100's of remote devices communicating 24x7) I spent most of the money buying up enterprise-ready servers to deal with a wave of business that is on the verge of closing, and backup devices to be ready for the wave.