My scale is off

So, here I am, going along, reading a few articles while my brain tries to wrap itself around another difficult problem. It seems as if my last three months of work have all been particularly difficult problems, when, in fact, they've been exposure to areas I have neither expertise nor, in some cases, even experience. I've learned a lot, but, gosh, has it been slow, frustrating going to get here.

One of the articles I happened to read was this one, from OnStartups.com: Why Raising VC Funding does not equal success. What caught my attention was not the whoo $17 million raised for this company. Instead, what caught my attention was this paragraph:

Now that this milestone has passed, it is time to get back to (real) work. For me, that means increasing TDC (Total Delighted Customers). Right now, TC (Total Customers) = 401 and I'm not foolish enough to believe that TDC = TC.

401 customers.

401.

Four hundred and one customers.

Four hundred and one customers and seventeen million dollars in venture funding capital.

Oooohhhhhhkaaaaaaay.

So, what are the prices that 401 customers warrant $17,000,000 in funding, recalling that the investors are expecting at least $34,000,000 back out?

401 * 3000 = $1,203,000 minimum.

So, round this way and that way, and there's about a 20:1 investment to current year income ratio.

Yeah, my scale is way off, because that is so way not the numbers I would have expected. I wouldn't have expected either that pricing for the product (inexperience on my part contributes to that statement), or that amount of funding available for the product (ditto on the reason).

Off, like it is in just about everything these days.

Why is that?