So the phone rings at a big publishing company in New York. “How long is a book? ” asks the caller.

“Well it varies from book to book and genre to genre,” explained the publishing company receptionist.

“This is a novel. How long is a novel?” the caller asked.

“That varies, too, but many of ours are around 80,000 words,” the receptionist said.

“Thank God, I’m finally finished!” said the caller.

By the same token, how much money does it take to start a technology business? I’ve just spent the summer with more than 30 startups and can tell you the amount varies greatly — more than you could even imagine.

In the simplest sense how much money it takes to […]