The metaphor in the title refers to "no silver bullets"<p>> There is no silver bullet that’s going to fix that. No, we are going to have to use a lot of lead bullets.
VC thinking at its worst:<p><pre><code> Me: “Why does competitor X have five times your revenue?”
Entrepreneur: “We are using partners and OEMs, because we can’t build a direct channel like competitor X.”
Me: “Why not? If you have the better product, why not knuckle up and go to war?”
</code></pre>
Um, because building out direct sales means we will have to hire a bunch of people, expend a huge amount of our revenue, and have a decent probability that we will <i>completely fail and take the company with it</i>.<p>But, yeah, that's <i>visionary</i>!<p>> “If our company isn’t good enough to win, then do we need to exist at all?”<p>Note that "successful" has only one definition to these kinds of people. Deal with them at your own peril.