Related concept: Enshittification (I've seen this mentioned on HN)
A company starts out focused on building a great product.
Then, they reach product-market fit.
Then, they raise money.
Now, the best way for them to grow is to go upmarket. Sell to enterprises.
Unfortunately, then the resources of the company are directed to features that enterprises buyers care about, because that's the best way for the company to make more money.
The actual product stagnates.
(This does leave an opportunity for bootstrapped founders to come in and swim in the "wake" of B2B startups that built a great product, then let their product stagnate while they went upmarket. Eventually some of those bootstrappers might choose to get bigger and move upmarket themselves, and then the opportunity opens up again for new bootstrappers. Or the bootstrapper can remain niche, focused on winning users who choose the best product and who don't require enterprise features, which is a smaller market but still can be quite profitable and would be a much smaller and simpler to run business.)
Examples: Airtable (it's a great product, I still love it, but it hasn't really improved for me as an end user since about 2016), Notion, Docusign (maybe it wasn't ever a great product, I'm not sure, but it sure hasn't improved for me as a user).
Instead of going from "good to great" it unfortunately seems like many startups go from "great to good"
A company starts out focused on building a great product.
Then, they reach product-market fit.
Then, they raise money.
Now, the best way for them to grow is to go upmarket. Sell to enterprises.
Unfortunately, then the resources of the company are directed to features that enterprises buyers care about, because that's the best way for the company to make more money.
The actual product stagnates.
(This does leave an opportunity for bootstrapped founders to come in and swim in the "wake" of B2B startups that built a great product, then let their product stagnate while they went upmarket. Eventually some of those bootstrappers might choose to get bigger and move upmarket themselves, and then the opportunity opens up again for new bootstrappers. Or the bootstrapper can remain niche, focused on winning users who choose the best product and who don't require enterprise features, which is a smaller market but still can be quite profitable and would be a much smaller and simpler to run business.)
Examples: Airtable (it's a great product, I still love it, but it hasn't really improved for me as an end user since about 2016), Notion, Docusign (maybe it wasn't ever a great product, I'm not sure, but it sure hasn't improved for me as a user).
Instead of going from "good to great" it unfortunately seems like many startups go from "great to good"