Edit: What I mean by this is networking at the expense of product/technology building.
As for allocating resources to networking before there is a working product, check out www.path101.com. I met these guys when they did an open brainstorming session with nothing but a preliminary pitch deck and not a line of code. Being open from very early on enabled them to find angel investors and their first employees, and when it came time to doing an alpha launch they had tons of people that had been eager to try the thing out for months.
What happens when it turns out that the bullet points with features cannot be implemented, or are simply not the best solution for the users?
I find pg's thoughts on the subject of how problems may end up being redefined as they are being worked on to be very wise advice.