Generally speaking, you invest heavily in quality once you have product market fit and therefore have a churn problem less related to the product features and functionality.

The common adage here around product market fit is that you want to be selling water in a desert - your customers don’t care that the water has some dirt and sand in it, they need it and are tolerant of its imperfections.

Yes, it can.

I would suggest, though, that this alone is the most difficult path forward, and if UX is truly the only differentiator you have and plan to have, you might want to pivot.

Depends.

Lots of correct answers here but I’ve also experienced venture studios that use some of their equity stake to hire high caliber in house resources as part of comp to work on the projects.

It depends a lot on the situation.

The standard advice is that product market fit is like selling water in a desert. That your incomplete functionality or poor UI/UX would be a deterrent for people who aren’t dying of thirst, but for those who are, they’re going to buy your product no matter what because its just that vital for them.

I founded a dev shop that focused on startups many years ago, and eventually exited it. Its definitely a viable path, but you have to be really on point with what you’re doing. The early stage startup market is not the same as any other. And the sort of overarching zeitgeist has shifted away from this type of thing as an external consultancy and more towards an in-house startup studio type of model. That’s where most of these types of companies have moved overall.