The funding climate for early stage companies in April 2008

I just had another meeting with an early stage entrepreneur who was commenting that raising capital seems to have gotten harder. I think that's true -- the bar has been raised.  The current economic outlook, the mortgage and financial crisis, the crashing of consumer confidence all have an affect on investors willingness to do a deal for an early stage company.  So my advice to the entrepreneur -- who is a solid guy and has a good business was to focus on getting money from customers rather than investors.  My belief is that the companies that are built during this period of time are going to be stronger and better than the companies that are built during the next growth spurt (whenever that is!).