“Yes, according to Robert Hendershott, a professor of private equity and entrepreneurship at the Leavey School of Business at Santa Clara University.”
“Take the Apple App Store, for instance. In a few weeks, developers can easily build an application, submit it to the store and immediately find out whether it has any traction. “They can vet the idea in the marketplace”
from http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/05/14/do-web-entrepreneurs-still-need-venture-capitalists/