I would go even further than this... If you are given an opportunity to state a number first, go for the ridiculously high, especially in the context on "we simply must have a number to get the ball rolling". Patrick suggests that you say "Okay, lets fill in $1.00 and then come back to it later" - Wrong! "Lets fill in $1,000,000... etc" is the way to go.

The reasons are best explained here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anchoring