"The ratio of "we just got funded" to "we actually developed a valuable product" stories I see in the tech press is getting to astronomical levels."
In the tech press. But amongst all enterpreneurs it is still quite low. For example no one would fund me, the noname hacker without a working product I can tell you that for sure. As I've browsed angel's profiles I saw that a working product with some customer/user traction seemed to be the absolute minimum for most of them to consider funding a startup. (I've seen something like 'social proof' in those angel-application forms, which may change things for some people, but not for me.)
In the tech press. But amongst all enterpreneurs it is still quite low. For example no one would fund me, the noname hacker without a working product I can tell you that for sure. As I've browsed angel's profiles I saw that a working product with some customer/user traction seemed to be the absolute minimum for most of them to consider funding a startup. (I've seen something like 'social proof' in those angel-application forms, which may change things for some people, but not for me.)