The rest of your comment makes this point obvious, but I think that you meant to say "In fact, we even had customers who bought these early versions because they wanted us to succeed."

Its great that the customer believed in you and your product so much that they basically funded you by buying initial versions that were "bad". What was the product? Were there few or no competitors in the market? I assume the company which purchased your initial versions would have just gone with your competitor otherwise.