Nice article, but I just couldn’t disagree more 😅

Some great companies had ‘accidental traction’, but many more great companies grinded, worked with their customers and iterated to find product-market fit (think whatsapp, which started as an app to just post statuses, pinterest, which started as a digital catalogue, or airbnb who famously struggled for years).

Also, the argument that you should have thought more about vision versus building your business just buys into the worst parts of VC culture within the startup community. You know who did that? Wework. Would you rather be Wework or Mailchimp — who bootstrapped until very late stages.

In the early days, startups should keep very lean and work obsessively closely with their customers until they are 100% that they really solve a problem for them and then build traction — which will help raising HUGELY (when push comes to shove, excellent traction trumps everything else, if you’ve hit £1m annualised rev in your first year and on course to 5x YoY, you’ll raise even if you’re doing something that sounds boring).

Early startup founders should not build something, trash it if it doesn’t get ‘accidental traction’ and assume that the charisma of the founders and some sales spiel about their vision will secure them big VC funding rounds.

I’m sorry to post a negative comment on a solemn post, it’s a shame Track didn’t work out, I just felt it worth sharing my views.