When things go wrong in startup companies, the VCs often reach for the easy answers:
– Let's get a "world class CEO"
– Let's sell the company
– Let's fire the VP Sales
But in my experience there are no silver bullets. Fixing a bad investment is really hard. First and foremost, you have to accept you've made a bad investment and then you need to decide if you want to do what it takes to fix it. And you need to accept that even if you do fix it, you will probably be left with a subpar investment from a return perspective. So be prepared to invest additional capital that will not meet your hurdle rates.
The one and only thing that will save you in the end is building a sustainably profitable company. If you think you can get there, do that. If you don't, let it go. The hail mary passes won't be caught, so you shouldn't even try to throw them.
