Thanks for the answers so far:

- I don't think showing some success stories help. For every Lisp success
story there are, unfortunately, substantially more success stories for C,
C++, Java (success measured as commercial success...)

- Business goals change and I would believe only the most seasoned CEOs
with strong backing can rule out an exit strategy that involves being
bought. And even then, it is probably still stupid if they ruled it out
right away.

Let me play the devil's advocate. It is a well-known sermon:

Choosing CLOS or the like:

- you don't get enough people
- those people you get cost too much
- you are incompatible with the rest of the world
- adapters and bug-fixes will always be last for you

Specifically for a startup:

- choosing a niche language at the core of your technology strategy may
make you liable to shareholder lawsuits if the company goes south

Actually this isn't even about a specific language but about any
non-mainstream technology. I remember these arguments from the days when we
tried to convince UBS to widely deploy a meta-programming approach to
achieve flexibility etc. on an enterprise level.

Looks like this is the standard "Crossing the Chasm" problem. Well, then
CLOS is dead, because you don't get a second chance. Unless, maybe, you
position it right to solve a new business problem. But then think Java:
Smalltalk would have been a better choice as the browser language that Java
started out as, but it didn't happen.

Dirk