DC Startups: Business Model or Not ?

So while I was wallowing in misery today back at work, there was quite the dustup around a post on CenterNetworks titled “Is Twitter F’ed?“. Allen Stern was basically questioning Twitter’s business model, or lack thereof and if they are screwed by launching and growing without a solid business plan. I had touched on this a little in my post “Can Twitter Support This Phenomena?“.

In any case, if you follow along on Technorati or Blogrunner, it led to a wave of response posts. Jason Calacanis threw in his 2 cents by stating basically if you are on the startup A-list, you need no business model, cash will find you … At least that is in Silicon Valley. I wonder about the east coast and more specifically the DC area. We have been talking recently following Nick O’Neill’s post on creating the Mini-Valley culture here in DC about the startup culture in the area. I think the east coast is a bit different than the valley. I thing the $$ here on the east coast is different. The money people are looking for sound business models and are more than likely a little more “conservative” when compared to the valley.

So what about it all you DC area startups? Did you start with a solid business model? or trying to get a user base, like Twitter is doing, and see what happens?