“It is the customer who determines what a business is.” — Peter Drucker, The Practice of Management The product is only the beginning, yet many startup CEO’s make the mistake of remaining glued to the product and its evolution, even in their post-Series B or C stages and with millions of users under their belt. Their problem is they haven’t been able to cross the chasm into business model evolution. I’ve already talked about the syndrome of the founding CEO who doesn’t appreciate marketing until much later because of their organic engineering or product focus. But there’s also the case of the founder who hasn’t been able to focus on a business model that is properly validated by the right business strategy.
