- No or very limited product validation. Company built a product before talking to customers - No clear value proposition or business use case - Underestimate

- No or very limited product validation. Company built a product before talking to customers - No clear value proposition or business use case - Underestimated the challenges of an R&D problem - Founders that do not understand the difference between R&D and product development... which leads to R&D problems on a product schedule - Lack of domain expertise - This applies across the entire organization. Founders come from an unrelated background. Engineers who've never built products in that particular domain. Marketing team not familiar with the product / have never marketed in that domain or unfamiliar with the customer base - Lack of adequate funding - "Bad" or "dumb" money, the wrong kind of investors. This could be a post in an of itself. Toxic jerks who make your life a nightmare. Strategic investors who want to drag you in a different direction - Lack of support from manufacturers - Being too early - Product (drone related) ready but regulatory environment years away from accepting - Hiring engineers that are too junior. Startups are not a place for on the job training IMO - Founders that literally bring nothing to the table - Indecisive leadership - Constant flip flopping halts product development, burns out the engineers - Opaque, non transparent leadership. Culture of secrecy, mis/distrust. Lies to investors - Stubborn founders unwilling to believe what their tech people tell them - Hiring sales people too soon / Sales led leadership. Product market fit still being discovered and a sales guy comes across an opportunity that is not product related and is a distraction to the product team. Your product "follows" what brings in the commission for the sales guy - Externalities / bad luck. Hard to build global distribution channels when a pandemic hits.