All things in place. Yet, what’s the missing piece in #startups. for. #fundraising and to scale?

A problem to be solved, good solution , good. to impeccable founders, large TAM, +VE Unit economics, different from competition with or without unique moat, scalable business model, part of an incubator/ accelerator ( some of them in initial stages), thought leaders/ corporate honchos as advisors and so on.

The pitch decks are good and some of them are perfect. I Started the journey with a young tech entrepreneur in india and a second one outside of india to learn the ropes and both of them have survived past 4/ 5 years. Grateful for all the learnings to date.

Have had the the opportunity to interact with excellent founders from India / USA and go through 1000 plus pitch decks last 4 plus years , got an exit and enabled a few startup’s to series A & beyond. Still an apprentice & learning from all the excellent founders and successful investors/ VCs on a daily basis.

COMMON THREAD amongst majority of founders:

• passion to solve a problem and started with some planning
• - wiling to learn and go through the grind and perseverance to succeed
• - capabilities to start, build. and willing to seek help where they need.

Yet a vast majority can’t raise serious funds beyond initial stage. It’s a different story that. number of startup’s have succumbed even with large. funding unable to SCALE.

My reading and may be I am wrong while the answers are unique to each startup.

The problem or the pain point- was it really huge in the first place? and even if it was there , will customers pay for the product /service again and again?

Are the products / services being built in anticipation of figuring out the paying customers along the journey with certain assumptions ? Running out of the initial money. with no runway left and then realising the assumptions were probably wrong?

Was the large TAM which was initially projected really there ? Are we too early or too late ? Why is the burn rate increasing even with growth in revenues? Why the huge expectations/push. on multiple X growth on founders in a challenging economy?

There are no right or wrong answers and has to be discovered as part of the journey. Yes, we can avoid some of the. mistakes by learning from others.

Fail fast with a solution (s), pivot and scale or move on a different life journey could be one of the answers.

Not all problems can be solved by the first few who tried. Someone comes along later and succeeds on the foundation already built.