Is there any sign yet of a funding pullback? I am not raising funds, but for those of you who are, are you seeing caution or hesitation from investors?
Angels who want to hand you half million seem to be everywhere. $100+ million seems to be all over the place because there are so few companies to invest in.
God help you if you want $2-$10 million because the VC community sure won't.
And then they wonder why there are so few $100+ million companies to fund.
Only in pure software where your fixed hosting costs and salary are your only expense. And, really, only in "social" things that you are going to flip to Yahooglezonsoft and can be made by flogging a half-dozen early 20-somethings for 6-9 months.
If you have actual hardware, your costs haven't come down much. They're mostly dominated by non-recurring expenses until you start shipping.
IoT (Internet of Things) has been a case study in this. Everybody wants to be the software backend that they can run for peanuts and extract rent indefinitely. There are a zillion companies all trying to do this and all failing because "Waaaaaah! Nobody wants to build that icky hardware stuff for us for free."
Yeah, well, hardware requires that you have a customer, that wants something, that will make him money. And hardware requires that you build a board and debug it.
So, yeah, go figure. Hardware requires some people who actually A) have some experience and know what they're doing and B) actually expect to get paid for that knowledge.
Gee what a surprise.
"Nevermind. We like flogging young 20-somethings better."
Wait, what? You've never actually seen anything directly from Shenzhen sold in the US and the hardware Kickstarters all seem to fail dramatically?
Next time try to convince someone who didn't have to give out about $20K to various Chinese suppliers at CES 2015 for samples, retainers, prototypes, etc. They might actually believe you.
The market had a correction! This is the end!
People realized China's numbers were not totally accurate! This is the end!
Housing prices in the Bay Area have reached ridiculous levels (again)! This is the end!
Everyone seems to want us to hit another downturn to be proven right. My fear is that once the media engine revs up, it can in fact create a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Just to note: Facebook just had 1 billion unique users in 1 day (2015). The year 2000 only had 350+ million INTERNET USERS.
It doesn't help that we are reminded by our predecessor's to watch out for the impending doom (something that might not have been expected). In the scheme of things, the context of where technology/internet was at the time was completely different to now.
The point according to OP is that the start-up scene has become soft and flabby, and lean times, whenever they arrive and for whatever reason, will toughen it up - and for those who can survive the initial chill winds, lower costs of labour, real estate etc will provide a boost.