<i>Before you can have a successful business, you need other people to back you.</i><p>Nice. First sentence, and I'm already in full disagreement with this article.<p>Perhaps it would be better phrased the other way around:<p><i>If you have a successful business, other people will back you.</i><p>While I don't dismiss the use of getting other people to join you in your business venture, and certainly a single-person start-up might always appear a bit dubious, there is no <i>need</i> for "backing" in a funding sense, which is what this article implies. Certainly, it can help, but it's by no means necessary.