Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

90% of the companies on TechCrunch disappear within 6 months

simply.io

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

21–24 of 24 posts

Re: 90% of the companies on TechCrunch disappear within 6 months

#21

Post by nabeel »

I like your core point. If you aren’t building something of value, then the press doesn’t matter you won’t last anyway.

But the “90% of Techcrunch companies are gone in 6 months” stat is just wrong. I don’t know who this Dreamit guy is, but seems to have no bearing on the reality of an average Techcrunch post.

Namely, most of the Techcrunch announcements nowadays are AFTER some amount of angel money has been raised. And most companies target around 18 months of cash. So even if they were building something horribly crappy, there’s no way they are gone in 6 months.

Looking at page 1 of Techcrunch today, and filtering just for early stage startups. We have: Worlddesk, Snapguide ($2m), Kibits ($1m), Circl.es, Hootsuite ($20m), Skills.to ($3m), RentSocial. While you can go through $1-3m quickly if you spend badly, six months is unrealistic.

As others are saying.. this is just a dumb, wrong stat.

Re: 90% of the companies on TechCrunch disappear within 6 months

#22

Post by DavidZhangToGo »

shalmanese wrote: post #20

Jesus Christ, this is not even close to being true and a paltry 5 minutes of research could have confirmed it. Starting from: http://techcrunch.com/page/311/ , looking at stories from September 29th, we have: SocialBakers: Still around SweetLabs: Still around Networked Insights: Still around Hipmunk: Still around Fameron: Still around Vostu: Still around Storydesk: Still around Shazam: Still around Kred: Still around…

I do think the 90% figure comes with a bit of hyperbole, but I also think there are more startups that “fail” than people realize. Most of these companies have such a low maintenance cost that the service continues even after the founders called it quits a long time ago. I personally know one of these companies.

By the way, the point of the article wasn't really about the 90% figure, but more about how people are seeing an article on TechCrunch as a means to an end, rather than a beginning.

Re: 90% of the companies on TechCrunch disappear within 6 months

#23

Post by batista »

shalmanese wrote: post #20

Jesus Christ, this is not even close to being true and a paltry 5 minutes of research could have confirmed it. Starting from: http://techcrunch.com/page/311/ , looking at stories from September 29th, we have: SocialBakers: Still around SweetLabs: Still around Networked Insights: Still around Hipmunk: Still around Fameron: Still around Vostu: Still around Storydesk: Still around Shazam: Still around Kred: Still around…

So, you literally went back EXACTLY 6 months, right? Well, natural language writing is not code. It has this things called "figures of speech".

The title means: "hellofalot of TC companies don't go anywhere and/or close quit soon after featured".

So, try 1 year and adjust the scale to > 70%. How will that go?

Also the "disappear" thing -- take it to mean, "are in dire situation, while the may still keep up a website and make desperate attempts for VC".

Re: 90% of the companies on TechCrunch disappear within 6 months

#24

Post by shalmanese »

batista wrote: post #23
shalmanese wrote: post #20

Jesus Christ, this is not even close to being true and a paltry 5 minutes of research could have confirmed it. Starting from: http://techcrunch.com/page/311/ , looking at stories from September 29th, we have: SocialBakers: Still around SweetLabs: Still around Networked Insights: Still around Hipmunk: Still around Fameron: Still around Vostu: Still around Storydesk: Still around Shazam: Still around Kred: Still around…

So, you literally went back EXACTLY 6 months, right? Well, natural language writing is not code. It has this things called "figures of speech". The title means: "hellofalot of TC companies don't go anywhere and/or close quit soon after featured". So, try 1 year and adjust the scale to > 70%. How will that go? Also the "disappear" thing -- take it to mean, "are in dire situation, while the may still keep up a website…

If he were within an order of magnitude of being correct, then we could nitpick about methodology but he's not. Even with his revised interpretation he is wrong, just plain wrong.
Post reply on HN