To me it doesn't seem the author made a honest effort to understand how start ups function, why they fail or succeed. It's a low quality piece, if it is even wrote by a human.
Why Startups Die
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Re: Why Startups Die
#22Of course almost all startups expect a long live, but strategically it may be better (for the founders) to close when the fundamental assumptions are no longer valid, in order to do a future clean restart in a brand new endeavor (usually after a detox period).
Re: Why Startups Die
#23This seems to miss diagnose the issue as suicide but really the startup wasn’t having success. If the company isn’t making money, then yes you run out of runway, you get founder conflicts etc. Saying this is suicide is missing the point. If you are failing giving up is sometimes the right option. Many startups are based on assumptions/predictions that turn out to be wrong. And it is hard to pivot if you’ve spent the…
If I were a startup, I would simply achieve product/market fit instead of failing. (yes, /s)
Haha, yes. I never understood why startups don't achieve PMF
Re: Why Startups Die
#244x founder with 2 exits. The only time conflict arose or I felt like giving up was when we weren't growing. Growth and sales can heal just about all wounds (not all, but just about all). These types of articles always seem to point out the symptoms, and not the cause.
The symptom of wanting to give up is because you aren't growing fast enough
The symptom of founder turmoil is because whatever strategy you're currently using isn't growing the company fast enough
The symptom of running out of money is because you're not hitting your sales targets
Re: Why Startups Die
#25I never thought I would fail. For 7+ years I think that's what drove me. Then things changed. Life changed. They attribute it to burnout and often that is the case, but you have to also factor in life and motivation changes. If the success doesn't come soon enough, you start looking towards other things, other aspects of life, if I may even say, more rewarding and real parts of life. Startups are a microcosm of what…
I'm closing my startup this month after five long years of toil and daily struggle. There were many times where we were just one step away from financial success that could have 10x the company. It always felt like we were just "so close" to making it. After years went by, the long hours, stress, and constantly uncertainty made me want my old life back. At this point, I'd rather do boring contract work where the succ…
Sometimes we need a reset. I think after some time away you start to gain clarity and then you understand what went wrong or what didn't work. And then if you want to decide to do it again, you can with a better perspective, but you can equally find more value, the same value elsewhere. Some people find contributing to a shared mission elsewhere also works. I hope you figure things out.
Re: Why Startups Die
#26There are some good nuggets of wisdom here, and I think the author should be less crass about "startup suicide"-- it's just an organization and it failed. If someone outside of the founder team is calling it a suicide, they need to go touch grass. SV VC's are so dramatic.
Re: Why Startups Die
#27In my experience writing tech history, the most common reason is money. The second most common reason is entering a crowded market with little differentiation. The second reason could have been solved by marketing, but many in the industry are allergic to marketing.
If you are building a better , this must be heavily and clearly marketed. Otherwise, people have zero reason to switch. Why mess with what's working?
Additionally, just being cheaper doesn't make a product better. If I were starting a new effort, the cheaper part might be enough. If I already have stuff in production, cheaper isn't sufficient.
Feel free to tell me I'm wrong, but these are my observations.
Re: Why Startups Die
#289 out of 10 startups fail? Where is this statistic from? Every single I see this troupe repeated I wonder why people don’t question it.
These are, as far as I know, well tracked datasets. For the US the Bureau of Labor statistics tracks each annual cohort of new companies and the attrition over time: https://www.bls.gov/bdm/us_age_naics_00_table7.txt
So for example the first chunk there, cohort of companies that started March 1994, there were 13% still operating 10 years later in 2024.
Re: Why Startups Die
#29I worked at 2 startups. Both failed.
The first had been around for about 4 years when I joined and had products that made money. They were trying to get acquired. They had partnered with 2 companies making products specifically for them. One of them offered to buy the company for $30 million but the founders thought their company was worth $300 million. They said no and then money started to run out and people started leaving. In the end the assets were sold for $2 million.
The second startup was created by former coworkers and I joined after it had existed for 4 months. We worked like crazy for the first year and got our prototype out. We had a lot of interest but it took me a while to realize that the 3 founders already had net worths from $5 million to billionaire level. When I heard about offers in the $30 million range they just weren't interested in selling for so little. I left after 3 years and the company floundered another 2 years until they shut it down as people left.
Re: Why Startups Die
#304x founder with 2 exits. The only time conflict arose or I felt like giving up was when we weren't growing. Growth and sales can heal just about all wounds (not all, but just about all). These types of articles always seem to point out the symptoms, and not the cause. The symptom of wanting to give up is because you aren't growing fast enough The symptom of founder turmoil is because whatever strategy you're currentl…
I agree on your statement that growth and sales heals a lot of wounds or covers them actually. In co-founder relationship the absence of those also does open wounds and shows problems.