That sounds logical but unfortunately it's not that simple. In 2001 I was part of a telecom related startup. All of the telcos were severely affected by the downturn, not just the bad ones. After the bubble burst nobody would do any deals that didn't have a positive effect on the balance sheet within that same quarter. So, effectively, they just stopped to launch new services. They all just stopped at the same time. Period. End of story.

So my advice to CarpeDiem is this: In a recession even more than at other times, don't depend on big deals you have to close in order to survive. Lots of small customers that value your product and pay real money is what you want in that situation (and probably in any situation). I wouldn't rely ad revenue either because it's notoriously volatile in recessions.

Ah yes, before I forget (although I'd rather like to forget that) we did actually have venture capital funding, but the VC went bankrupt before the second (already agreed) round of funding went through. And that VC was a subsidiary of a major corporation, an icon of stability, not reliant on the tech or telecoms sector, but it still went bust :-)