I don't think that getting funding should rank you above other elements. I know that this particular board is probably more funding-oriented than others but a lot of us do not consider getting funded a necessity or even a sign of success. Also, having a 2nd company with the 1st company still running is not necessarily a good thing.
It is more of a general concept of the ladder rather than the specifics of how things should rank. And it is about perceptions not true success. Personally if you tell me you have a startup that has $2m in funding from Sequoia I would think you are doing pretty well on the entrepreneurial ladder. That may just be me.
I corrected the wording. I meant that you have moved on from the 1st but it was not a big success.
Oh I would definitely have a huge expectation if I were to meet up with someone who had secured a $2m round from Sequoia - I understand you completely there. Angel funding of $100k though is often given to ID-10-Ts because the angels are not savvy (certainly not all angels, of course, but there's a significant portion of angel investing given to just plain stupid ideas). If someone told me they had raised $250,000, I would be interested to hear how but I wouldn't think they were one notch up the ladder until I heard more. For $500,000, I'm more interested. For $1m+ then you start getting into the space where you either fooled one sucker for a lot of money or you have a good idea (typically).
I absolutely agree that funding isn't always the best way to go. I started two companies with outside funding - and you won't imagine the work you need to do to keep your investors happy. Now I do it without investors - it's simply too much work, and doing software isn't that hard.
The ability to deliver projects and build a developer community belong much higher on this ladder. Raising money is like getting hired, it's not a real accomplishment: paying investors back is, as is getting paid by customers. The ability to build a profitable company isn't broken out on the list and should be.
