Sorry, but his article is really one-sided. It just blames the lack of funding for the failure and disregards other factors and challenges of a startup.<p>As I understood Readness was somehow funded (4iP) but the funding was then cut off for some reason. They tried to get into YC but failed and then decided to kill the service/startup.<p>What I read from the article is that the founders weren't trying hard enough.
What about other sources for funding? Sure, YC is nice, but it isn't the only place in the world to get funding.
To how many other investors have the founders reached out? What about the numbers (users, pageviews)?
What were they going to make money from?<p><i>> "When we returned from San Francisco, we realised that the funding and resources required to iterate Readness into something that could attract hyper-growth, were far higher than we had available."</i><p>This reads like: "We weren't abele to get the funding that easy and decided to kill the service after a half year of operation."<p>How about slow and steady growth in contrast to hyper-growth? More PR? (I would have been a potential user, if I knew it existed).
Most startups take definitely more then 6 months to build a solid user base, features and to get funded. It's <i>very</i> hard work.<p>As long as you are somehow growing and improving the service, you're good. Don't count (on) money, build a business/service and work hard. If you need money to cover your costs of living: bootstrap, do consulting, take another job.<p>What I basically want to say is that while funding might an essential aspect of your startup, it's not the only one and the solution to everything. So, don't blame it always on funding!