I commented on the blog, but really my comment probably belongs here.

This is a great advertisement for SeedCamp, but I find it strange that SeedCamp/Y-Combinator/TechStars focus on people with ideas, pre-launch.

Is there anything like this availble to first time bootstrappers who have just gone and gotten it done? Build/Launch/Revise - but it would be great to have access to these kinds of resources - lots of knowledge and a bit of money.

Seems to me that once you've got a product out there, it's difficult to get small amounts of money to keep things going, and the publicity that YC etc. provide is unbeatable.

I think that looking to 'validation' from investors demonstrates some level of insecurity about your idea.

And it leaves power in the hands of investors.

Don't believe for a moment that all investments were good idea (obligatory pets.com reference here).

There's power in looking for validation elsewhere: users, competition, press. If you get it from there, the investment will follow.

the whole article is just one very long advertising for seedcamp

Sure, it promotes Seedcamp, in the same way it promotes YC or TechStars. These programs are increasingly the smartest way for first-time founders to get off the ground with their ideas. Plus, at least here in Europe, there's still a huge group of talented hackers who don't know about them, so spreading the word is no less important today than a couple years ago.

Full disclosure: I work for Seedcamp.

It's cool, I wasn't jumping on you :-) I was just summarizing the content.