A company brought me in because they were burning runway, the board was losing patience, and the leadership team was paralyzed by competing theories about what was wrong. The CEO thought it was a product problem. The board thought it was a leadership problem. The investors thought the market had shifted. Six months of debate. Nothing moving.
I found the real problem. It wasn't the product, the team, or the market — it was that the company had outgrown a strategy that used to work, and no one could see it because the old strategy still felt true. We rebuilt the thesis, realigned the team, and the company closed its next round eight weeks later.
The problem is almost never what the room thinks it is. Clarity wins.