That's a very interesting set of findings. What is important to realize when reading this that it is a case of survivorship bias. The startups that were audited were obviously still alive, and any that suffered from such flaws that they were fatal had most likely already left the pool.
In 15 years of doing technical due diligence (200+ jobs) I have yet to come across a company where the tech was what eventually killed them. But business case problems, for instance being unaware of the true cost of fielding a product and losing money on every transaction are extremely common. Improper cost allocation, product market mismatch, wishful thinking, founder conflicts, founder-investor conflicts, relying on non-existent technology while faking it for the time being and so on have all killed quite a few companies.
Tech can be fixed, and if everything else is working fine there will be budget to do so. These other issues usually can't be fixed, no matter what the budget.
In 15 years of doing technical due diligence (200+ jobs) I have yet to come across a company where the tech was what eventually killed them. But business case problems, for instance being unaware of the true cost of fielding a product and losing money on every transaction are extremely common. Improper cost allocation, product market mismatch, wishful thinking, founder conflicts, founder-investor conflicts, relying on non-existent technology while faking it for the time being and so on have all killed quite a few companies.
Tech can be fixed, and if everything else is working fine there will be budget to do so. These other issues usually can't be fixed, no matter what the budget.