Startup #1 We spent two years continuously improving a product that wasn't validated yet, as opposed to getting something out the door and pivoting our way into

Startup #1 We spent two years continuously improving a product that wasn't validated yet, as opposed to getting something out the door and pivoting our way into PMF. Our MVP was too planned and too precise. The codebase was quality (Angular/Rails) and the design was tight, but we didn't have something people wanted. Our biggest mistake was trying to do product/customer development while we were engineering in parallel. We failed because we over-engineered a simple idea without truly knowing our customers or the industry. Startup #2 We started with product and customer development to verify the need. It was there. We had no funding so I (the only BE engineer) had to find a job to support my family while trying to finish the product. That was the mistake. Startups need 100% focus. I ran out of time, energy, and steam while the rest of the team waited on development. I ended up having to leave due to the new time commitment, and they weren't able to find a capable replacement or assistance to hit the finish line. Startup #3 We verified the need by launching a mediocre product (using rapid development and open source tools instead of rolling our own) and then quickly improving/iterating based on customer response. Three months later our revenue is ~100k/month.