It is really hard to pin down a predominate factor. I could say the difficulties of the early days of my business were predominantly caused by time-to-market because if we had got our products out soon we could have avoided the problems caused by 9/11, but it really was multifactorial.
I have written up about my experience if you want to know more [1].
1. https://www.tillett.info/2015/06/24/why-i-kept-my-startup-in...