[bramblerose]

> I’d guess it took 4x longer to ship than expected, which allowed doubt in the project to run rampant.

Isn't that an MVP working as it should? Implement something small, realize the whole project is _much_ more complicated than expected, and therefore realizing it's a bad plan after investing 'MVP' sized money rather than 'full project' sized money?

Formulated otherwise, you haven't wasted X in building a useless MVP, rather you invested X in gaining knowledge that saved the company 10X (or 100X) by not investing in the wrong thing.