“We spent $200M and we have not proven our business model” [Startup Lessons]

“We spent $200M in the past 2 years. $200M!
We spent $200M and we have not proven out our business model.
We spent $200M and we have not proven that we know precisely what customers want to buy.”

Jason Goldberg, cofounder and CEO of Fab, one of the biggest failure of the recent times wrote a memo to his team, as part of the final act.  The company spent burnt $200mn in 2 years and well, they got into action only when they had $100mn left.
Here is probably the most important takeaways from Jason’s letter.

I have made mistakes.

• I guided us to go too fast.
• I enabled us to lose our core focus.
• I didn’t insist on our honing in on our target customer.
• I didn’t build discipline around costs and business metrics enough into our culture.
• I spent too much on marketing before we got the consumer value proposition right.
• I allowed us to over invest in Europe vs. insisting on scaling global teams from the start.
• I didn’t build a culture and discipline that connected supply chain to merchandising to delivery. I allowed silos of teams and thinking, and that has seeded an awful an [sic] cancerous distrust.
• I didn’t see the need to course correct fast enough. [Read the entire letter]