A recent New York Times article describes the research being done by David Kirsch at the University of Maryland on companies that started during the dot-com bubble. Some findings:

• Looking at a data set of 1,018 companies, not a single entrepreneur received venture capital funding by submitting a business plan “over the transom.”
• About 5 percent of entrepreneurs who knew the venture capitalist or gained a personal introduction received funding
• 48 percent of dot-com companies founded since 1996 were still around in late 2004, more than four years after the Nasdaq’s peak in March 2000
• Many survivors pursued markets that didn’t offer hundreds of millions in quick profits, but still presented viable Internet-based business opportunities