The standard narrative runs like this: funding unlocks growth, growth creates scale, scale creates defensibility. Raise money, move fast, capture market share before anyone else can. It’s a compelling story, and for a specific category of business — one that requires network effects, massive infrastructure, or regulatory capture — it’s even occasionally true. But it describes a vanishingly small fraction of businesses, and the survival rate of the companies that pursue it suggests the story is more seductive than it is accurate.