What mistakes kill startups?

Yenire leal
41 replies

Replies

Sushil Sharma
There are many things that can kill a startup but I think the most important is the target audience. Deciding the right target and connecting with them is the way to success for any startup. Your great copy doesn't make any sense if you send it to the wrong person. It only works when it is reached by the right person.
Yenire leal
@sushil_sharma2 I agree. First empathize with your first users.
Ramana
@sushil_sharma2 I learnt it the hard way.
Roberto Morais
A few things from the top of my mind: - Doing too much stuff, focus is mandatory on startups and it is impressive how easy it is to lose it. - Misalignment between founders, this happens very often and it's really hard to fix if it passes a certain point. We have hired specialists facilitators to realign more than once. - Not paying the right attention to the customers, it is also easy to get lost on the day to day of work (building features, hiring, etc), demands from stakeholders and so on. But if you are not paying attention to your customers there is a huge chance you are moving in the wrong direction. - And last, long feedback loops. The most important thing when building a business is to know every idea you have is an hypothesis that needs to be validated as fast as posible.
usama ahmad
Poor idea implementation is one of the typical mistakes that destroys startups.
Di
don't think about marketing from the start. Marketing is the heart of business. No marketing, no business
Yenire leal
@mironshe Absolutely. Sometimes proof of concept can be done using only the marketing department without much budget and with good results, without spending on ideas that are not sustainable or generate value.
Ramana
@mironshe Couldn't agree more. Couple of my startups were killed just because of bad/no marketing.
Ricardo Marinho
There are mistakes that we can see, and others we can not. I work with several projects in pre-seed and in this stage it is very common to have the same errors. Entrepreneurs focus on creating the best possible product and only then launching it instead of starting with something lean. It is very common for entrepreneurs to be motivated to start a business because they think they will get rich quickly, and this is wrong. The focus and drive should always be to solve a problem. There is still a lot of lack of self-education. It is not difficult to buy a book, watch workshops on youtube, or ask to google and learn about entrepreneurship. These are some mistakes that can be perceived from the outside. Other mistakes that happen is a weak business model, entrepreneurs don't know how to make money with the product they created, another is not having a good team and creating projects with friends and family without understanding if they are the right people for the job. These are just some ideas.
Yenire leal
@ricardo_marinho_goncalves Thanks for sharing your ideas. I find it valuable to learn from the mistakes that some have made. That's why we say that you learn from mistakes, you just have to be very attentive to that.
Gaelle Lacoste
Make employee pay for coffee.
Eduardo Alencar
Little validation in the market to discover the real demand and urgency that the market has for your product.
Juhi K.
Imperfect implementation of high-fidelity designs. Sloppy development can plummet trustworthiness & credibility of a product very fast, making sales & marketing much harder than it needs to be.
Gabrielle Pacheco
Some of them do not improve the knowledge of the employees. Everything there goes so quickly that they forget how to organize it.
Abraham Samma
- Poor founder/team dynamics. Temet nosce always - Poor decision making processes. Always know what your goals are, always have a North star and know when you're going off course (no moving goal posts) and always be ready to pivot when something better presents itself. - Not loving the problem - Not focusing on building an awesome and relevant product that solves a high volume, high intensity problem - Not doing your homework for important things like managing finances - Not valuing team mates/employees and putting them first - Never planning for the worst - Living/hiring as if the bubble (free VC money) is never-ending (ties back to valuing employees and being honest with them from the get go) - Never taking care of yourselves (founder and team). Unhealthy practices like crunch time is a no no. - Living like an artist (fake Steve Jobs) instead of a methodical iterator (real Steve Jobs) ... Keep the list going 😉
Yenire leal
@absamma Your words are very right. Which of those have you seen that is repeated the most? I would say that some focus on wanting to build an awesome product and in the end they do not end up solving a problem for the consumer.
Abraham Samma
@yenire_leal I'd say the one oft repeated mistake where I am is the fact that people tend to start-up with the aim to raise VC. The problem being solved solved and the solution they come up with end up being basically cookie cutter companies. When I tell them they're wrong and they should bootstrap, they always think me mad (despite knowing well enough that all their entrepreneur heroes did exactly that in so many cases) It may be because many startup founders are after easy money; it may also be because it's something the local culture has taught them to believe. However, that mindset leads to ruin. When the goal becomes raising rounds, and no one comes offering checks to them, the team either falls apart, or pivots into a NGO/non-profit that does exactly what they want: grant seeking.
Ricardo Marinho
Totally true. That's why execution is very important. Mistakes is part of the road
Bhavna Singh
This is the superb question you have asked here. As there are many things you can do to make the things work but if you also have the idea of what not to do or to keep an eye on, it would certainly be the value to your opinion. Just to add up my opinion on this I believe to stick with your vision in the long term and open to hear the feedbacks and criticism not only from your end users but also your team members and value them and improvising accordingly would be fruitful.
Yenire leal
@bhav_singh Totally. I have seen how the owners cling to their ideas and are sometimes blind to the opinions that their team may issue.
Alexandra Cote
Not getting your ICP
Katya Veremeichik
Lack of managerial skills in founders. I once worked in a great startup: a very talented team and a cool idea. It fell apart because of constant micromanagement and a total lack of communication skills of one of the founders.
Yenire leal
@katyaveremeichik oh! I lived something similar. I totally support your comment.
Maksym Astakhov
In my mind, the main thing is trying to solve a customer's problem in a wrong way or a non-existing problem. Other staff like marketing and investments will definitely fail if you don't find the real problem that should be solved.
Maya Ben Zid
- Not focusing enough on feasibility, prioritizing "cool ideas" over practical impact. - Not understanding the market well enough. - Rushing the launch too much and pushing out products that shouldn't be in production. - Having no strategy, acting sporadically. - Not setting up success metrics.
Rich Watson
Not sticking with your instincts is another, I believe
Karan Kumar
Too much spending without considering your bottom line
Ramana
1. Professionally appealing name for your product and website/domain. 2. Very focussed marketing to reach the right audience. and keep Sundar pichai happy.
Akheel Ahamed
Few thoughts from a founder perspective: - Not moving fast enough to adapt according to the market - Founder(s) with rigid mindsets. They take themselves way too seriously and when they get proved wrong, it hurts them a lot. - Not understanding the importance of humility. People respect it when you accept mistakes and take accountability for them. - Being extremely delusional to a point where you deny reality. One needs to be rooted in reality and face it as it is to take best decisions for the present & future.