The mid-to-late stages of an Entrepreneurial Startup (ESU) are defined by survival, high growth, and either exit or early maturity. The survival and early growth stages are transformational, requiring ESU founders to establish a sustainable business model that is scalable, replicable, and growth oriented, with clearly prioritized milestones and incremental progress. The focus during this phase is on refining value propositions, executing go-to-market strategies, and achieving proof of concept through sales revenue and profitability. Additionally, it involves developing the ESU’s intellectual capital, which consists of intangible assets like human, organizational, social, and relational capital. In the late stages, the emphasis shifts to value capture from scalable, profitable growth, culminating in value extraction through exit events such as trade sales, M&A, or IPOs. The mid-to-late stages of an ESU require attracting three types of customers: paying, financing, and trade sales. ESU founders must position their ventures to meet the needs of these three customer types while also ensuring returns on their costs. In the mid-stage, costs play a mediating role in value creation and capture, while in the late stage, they serve both mediating and moderating roles in value capture and extraction. The mediating role of costs is tied to an investment mindset focused on firm value and ROI. In contrast, the moderating role relates to margins and profitability. For paying customers, costs should deliver a higher return in terms of efficiency and effectiveness than their impact on profitability. For financing customers, the cost of capital must be significantly lower than the anticipated ROI from a future exit. For trade sales customers, the ESU—as a product for acquisition—must offer greater strategic value than its acquisition cost.