Erica, this is a fantastic article to end my day with. You have elaborated wonderfully on how, with funding, the influx of capital and the shrinking of ‘artificial’ deadlines, can cause a startup to lose sight of the larger goal, or be reckless in its pursuit of short-term goals.

I think the real problem with pre-product/market fit funding is that startups/investors see it as a route to scale. Instead of funding providing you a runway to experiment more, iterate over the product, and deliver the value the market needs. Funding, if intelligently leveraged, can allow you to hire the exact kinds of people that may be missing from your team jigsaw which is holding you from achieving your product/market fit.

Thank you for this post!