I think one of the major reasons a lot of tech startups are failing is because so many of them don't even begin to focus on monetization and are still stuck on being acquired with a big exit. Even with the whole Lean Startup movement, I think so many startups are still far from thinking the way they need to to make a profit in a reasonable amount of time.
MVPs and customer interviews and everything else are great, but at the end of the day, what's most important is that you target a market large enough to sell to enough customers to make for a sustainable business model. Even a perfect product can fail if a market is too small or worse, completely non-existent.
I think it's time to take such an advise seriously. Today's investments go to either successful late stage startups or seed ones[1]. And this trend is likely to continue for a while.
Also, there was a good discussion about profit[2] a week ago. I recommend to take a look.
another part, is that selling is just plain hard(especially B2B)...and many of the startups don't have the market of customers who'll actually pay to scale their numbers.
That is a very good point. Monetization is key. Unless you have very deep pockets as a startup, if you don't focus on monetization in the early stages, you're more than likely going to fail due simply to the high cost of launching and maintaining startups. Building a startup simply because it's a cool idea or has future potential is almost a sure way to keep it from succeeding. It seems like this simple fact often gets overlooked when people begin startups. Money is king.
MVPs and customer interviews and everything else are great, but at the end of the day, what's most important is that you target a market large enough to sell to enough customers to make for a sustainable business model. Even a perfect product can fail if a market is too small or worse, completely non-existent.