A new study from ScaleWise reveals that poor startup hiring, weak GTM strategy, and inflated Product-Market Fit are stalling the UK’s innovation economy and costing founders valuable growth time.

A single bad hire could cost your startup an entire year of growth. That’s the stark warning from a new ScaleWise report, which found that nearly one in four UK startups say a wrong GTM (go-to-market) hire has delayed their progress by up to twelve months.

The findings underscore a growing challenge across the UK startup ecosystem, as early-stage companies grapple with structural weaknesses, overextended founders, and slow funding transitions.

A Crisis in Startup Growth

According to Crunchbase data, the percentage of UK startups graduating from Seed to Series A has dropped from 8% to just 2% in the past 18 months — a sharp decline that threatens the country’s reputation as a global innovation hub.

ScaleWise’s new report, Bridging the Gap: The Graduation Crisis in Early-Stage Startups, surveyed over 100 founders and scaleup leaders to uncover what’s holding them back. The results point to one common culprit: hiring mistakes and lack of strategic execution.

When One Wrong Hire Can Set You Back a Year

Nearly 24% of founders admitted that hiring the wrong GTM leader delayed company growth by up to a year. The report suggests that startups often rush into full-time hires without testing leadership fit, when fractional GTM experts could help them scale faster and more efficiently.

“Startups shouldn’t assume external factors alone are stalling their funding journey,” said Tom Glason, CEO and co-founder of ScaleWise. “While more than half of founders cite market conditions as their biggest hurdle, the real barriers lie within — unclear GTM ownership, slow execution, and weak strategic structure.”

Overworked Founders and Missing Structures

The report also revealed that half of Series A CEOs are still personally running their GTM strategies. Two-thirds of startups face bottlenecks because founders hold onto sales and marketing responsibilities too long, and only 32% have clear ownership of GTM beyond the CEO.

That lack of delegation creates deeper problems: slow execution, unclear roles, and reactive decision-making. Many founders also admitted they’re not using modern tools to optimize efficiency — a full 33% say they don’t use AI to cut costs or boost productivity.

The Hidden Cost of Overconfidence

Another revealing insight from the report: one in five startups rely heavily on a single large customer, giving them a false sense of Product-Market Fit. This overreliance can mask underlying growth issues until it’s too late — especially when trying to raise the next funding round.

A Call for Smarter Hiring and Strategy

As Glason explains, the path from Seed to Series C has fundamentally changed. “Having a robust and repeatable GTM strategy is now imperative for success,” he said. “Capital may still be king, but expert GTM guidance has become the critical enabler of sustainable growth.”

Fractional GTM leaders, he added, offer a low-risk, high-reward solution — giving startups instant access to senior expertise without the long hiring timelines. “You can now bring in the right guidance quickly and efficiently,” Glason noted, “helping you hit your targets and move confidently toward your next round.”