"Mindful aggression" - that's a good way of putting it and I like that.

If you've got a good product, users that want it and technology that scales, growth can be orchestrated somehow. It's all about timing and push/pull levers.

Great story. Is 4% conversion typical in freemium/SaaS companies?

If 2 million users are subsidizing 48 million, that's a pretty high-margin business.

Our geography isn't working for us. Canada as a whole is smaller than the state of California from a Tech-VC perspective. We need more funds and more VC's willing to take chances with entrepreneurs as well as working as ONE ecosystem, not just a hub of smaller one
I think there's an abundance of startups now, but still a shortage of VC's & funds that will take the chances, and will want to build them up aggressively like the US does.

You hit the nail on the head. I'm an entrepreneur with an enterprise-focused product, currently in a Series A hunt, and I've heard and been told that *exact* attitude you have described.
Only 1 out of 10 VCs I spoke to was specifically interested in the enterprise model, whereas most others are expecting traction metrics that are more related to a consumer business.
I think there are several reasons for that:
- they don't understand the enterprise market
- there is a belief that user traction & audience build-out translate into value
- lazy poking (as you suggested)
But underlying that behavior, there is a trend of consumerization of technologies/solutions that are destined for the enterprise. In other words, these are new solutions that have a consumer-facing look and ease of set-up/adoption, but are targeted at the enterprise market. They require less intense selling than traditional enterprise sales, but more than just a 1 minute consumer signup.
My company fits in that new middle-ground, and I'm seeing that trend becoming part of an emerging segment. I wonder if you see that same trend, which gives more hope for enterprise start-ups?

RSS is great for following complete blogs. Twitter is great for following people. Problem is none of them are good enough for following comprehensive topics. Even with filtering through engagement, you get a partial view on a given topic (that's if you care for completeness).
I make additional comments here "Feeding vs. Reading: An RSS Saga" http://www.eqentia.com/2009/12/25/feeding-vs-read...

"Freestyle business"- In reference to freestyle swimming, where it's the most versatile way of swimming fast. The entrepreneur in this case doesn't fit the VC math mold, but can still go far with a different economic model.

"Viable business", in reference to Guy Kawasaki's contrast of "fundable business" vs. "viable business".

"VC-less venture" or "VC-free venture"
I also like "self-sustaining" which has been already mentioned.

Nice implementation. I didn't realize Lijit had this capability. For an even more encompassing aggregator that groups VC blogs, mining of vc deals, angels, start-ups and with faceted navigation, social media linkages & automatic semantic tagging, try this:
http://beta.eqentia.com/techvc

The book is available now "Free" on Scribd http://bit.ly/umbVL. Also, I configured this comprehensive aggregator on Free, Freemium & Freeconomics using the Eqentia platform http://beta.eqentia.com/free

Just to complete the chorus (and I'm sure the debate is just starting), Seth Godin weighed in as well, with "Malcolm is wrong", http://bit.ly/1MWeb.
Nonetheless, I'm glad to see where the VC's are siding on this issue. For me, the only Free that makes sense is one that leads to a Paid of some sorts- whether subsidized by someone else or subsequently paid.