you might be underestimate the importance of narrative in a startup. a startup takes a tremendous amount of belief to will into existence, and a lot of belief depends on an unbroken narrative. to most outward folks, a startup generally wants to appears to be continuously crushing it - people understand that there are ups and downs, but generally have no patience for a "well we had a slow 3 years where we made a lot of mistakes" nuance.

if you doubt this, consider how you eval a startup when joining as an employee, much less as an investor.