Steve Blank can be highly informative in regards to great approaches to a start-up I watch his Stanford class videos often as reminder and reference material quite often.
I'm surprised he doesn't suggest to "get out of the building".
IIRC, Steve often suggests that you need to get away from the computer and out of the building to talk to customers - even on web projects. He didn't use that phrase once in this post.
Is that even close to reality? I'm in San Francisco and haven't even ventured to the valley yet. With funding seemingly readily available, how many serious entrepreneurs or programmers are unfunded/unemployed in their field?
The best argument I see in all that text is that it can leave you with substandard work. The rest of it is a lot of corollaries to the idea that doing speculative work is not a good deal for a designer.
I think the idea in this guide is that substandard work is preferred to burning time or cash on professional design work. You aren't even sure you have a viable business. You should absolutely minimize time to iterate and cash spent in this scenario.
I'm all for supporting designers, doing business locally, and the importance of design. Unfortunately, sometimes people need things in the context of scare resources that don't permit the ideal choice.
Once there is a business...find a good designer and develop a great relationship.
http://ecorner.stanford.edu/authorMaterialInfo.html?mid=2059