The biggest reason I’ve seen bootstrap young startups fail (outside of the normal modes of startup failure, which are largely either a lack of product–market fit or co-founder conflicts) is that they don’t establish a proper board of directors or some form of true advisory capacity where people are meeting with them repeatedly and forcing a conversation around planning, growth, and direction and then it doesn’t have to be tied to governance.
If you think about it, venture capital is a bundled product—a bundle of advice, governance, and money. In reality, people great at allocating capital and making investments may not actually be very good at giving advice on governance.
People who are good at giving advice may be bad at choosing companies to work with.
