Company I currently work for used to be a startup - just got acquired by a huge international outfit last year. Prior to that change in leadership, the one thing we always did, no matter how much it pissed everyone off, was to chase every damn squirrel we saw, regardless of what the ROI would be. Potential customer at a trade show mention offhand that they want in a product? Rush home and tell the developers to start building it right the hell now. See something on LinkedIn from a competitor about some new data they're offering? Stop everything and go get that data so we can offer it too. The whole thing would be frustrating because we'd devote weeks/months to something only to find out we have a product that can't be sold. Either the product was too specific to be of use to more than one client or the person who signed off on the idea was no longer with the company and nobody else wanted to own the damn thing.

That bit us in the ass more than once. Finally about 18 months ago the CEO (who founded the company) pushed us into a multi-million dollar investment in a software product because somebody told him at a bar one time that this software was the answer to the ultimate question of life, the universe, and everything. When it turned out that we'd need at least a year of of development work and tens of thousands of dollars of server hardware on top of just buying the software, the CEO was thrown out on his ass and the rest of the board opted to put the company up for sale.

Now we're integrating into one of the behemoths in our industry, and the insanely slow decision-making process behind anything is actually a breath of fresh air. I don't have anyone coming to me telling me to make something now because there are going to be bean counters in Connecticut who want to know if we're going to make any money off of it first.

So while startups pride themselves on being agile and responding to market demands and "not being afraid to fail", that desire to try to be everything to everyone just to make a sale does way more harm than good. Be careful on what you sign off on, don't wander away from your core competencies just to make a sale, don't be afraid to say no.