From our price studies, we're on par with other fast turn shops and faster than all of them with big high mix orders. You can get cheaper parts slowly, but we focus on people with more money than time.
Ha, funding isn't a vanity metric when your company needs financing. If you're doing a really big project in a high-growth competitive market, you'll very often need to go the VC route. Bootstrapping doesn't work for this.
If you've ever done it, you know that raising angel/VC money is hard work. I respect people who are able to raise funding, and far more I respect when they turn that into great products that help a lot of people.
Yea, I think making manufacturing better is a big deal, and there is much work to do. Thanks for all of your feedback!