You’re sidestepping the core point. Of course some companies had fundamentals, even Kozmo had product market fit in a narrow sense. But the broader ecosystem was bloated with capital chasing flimsy ideas, and most dot-coms had no viable path to profit. That’s not “too broad a brush”, it’s backed by the collapse itself.
Kozmo is a great case study: decent demand, terrible unit economics, and zero pricing power. They didn’t just scale too fast, they scaled a structurally unprofitable model. There was no markup, thin margins, and they held inventory without enough throughput.
Many of these companies may fail but it’s a much different environment and the path to profitability is moving a lot quicker.
Kozmo is a great case study: decent demand, terrible unit economics, and zero pricing power. They didn’t just scale too fast, they scaled a structurally unprofitable model. There was no markup, thin margins, and they held inventory without enough throughput.
Many of these companies may fail but it’s a much different environment and the path to profitability is moving a lot quicker.