Later Stage Advice for Startups
I think really good advice to late stage companies, before any of this stuff, is, &quot;Have you actually found product&#x2F;market fit?&quot; If so, what is the product, what is the market?<p>I have spent a lot of time with startups (as an employee), and I have never seen this question answered properly, at least up close.<p>Very often product&#x2F;market fit becomes &quot;We&#x27;ve solved all these peoples&#x27; problems and they pay us money.&quot; The problem? The problems and the people are all different. I&#x27;ve witnessed so many companies turn themselves into specialized consulting companies thinking they&#x27;ve built the product that&#x27;s going to take them to the finish line, when all they&#x27;ve really done is networked their way into solving a bunch of separate business problems for their network. A product should be so good that your users are almost embarrassed to file support tickets.<p>IMO, sama is wrong to suggest founders take their eye off the product ball at all (even just a little) until they are 1000% sure they&#x27;ve built a machine that will scale, and now all they have to do is scale it.