There are over 100 reasons why startups fail. Here are just the most common mistakes that most people makes when starting a business. This includes examples of failure I hear all the time, other studies or simply personal experiences. In fact, this is probably what I have done the best so far, making all the mistakes possible. In fact, I have a lot to say.

Most common reasons why startups fail:

1. Choose the wrong people
2. No Market need
3. Run out of money
4. Lack of passion
5. Loose focus
6. Give up too soon / lack of experience
7. Not listening to feedbacks

Why startups fail?

1. Choose the wrong people

The first common mistake is to choose the wrong person to work with. At the beginning, the startup requires very skilled people on your side. Every move may affect the company to instantly fail, so every move must be right. Of course,we all want people that always do what they say they will do and always deliver on time. It is really important to choose the right people, the people that you want to spend time with every day. It is almost like ‘getting married’. Everyone needs to get along really well.

2. No market need

If no customers are interested in the product, the startup is guaranteed to fail right away. in fact, before even building a product, we need to know who are the potential customers and what we are willing to build in order to satisfy the customer needs or fix one of their problems. This problem needs to be painful enough for the people to buy your product. In fact, The Lean Startup written by Eric Ries recommend testing your market first before building anything.

3. Run out of money

This is one of the most important factors that needs to be carefully managed. Without money, there is no business. Of course, starting a company always requires investments to get started. Now whether the investment comes from you, your family, your friends or simply an investor is up to you.

Some people like Jason Fried the author of Rework advises in his book that people should work on their idea after their full-time job in order to fund their idea themselves. Others, recommend to get investments in order to rapidly scale your business and beat the competition. At the end of the day, there is no good and bad ways to get funds and it just depends on what kind of business that you are willing to build. Are you willing to have a small business with more control? or are you willing to build a big company with less control?

The one question: are you willing to fund your own project? If you are willing to fund your idea, you have self-belief and it automatically gives you more responsibilities upon your acts. In fact, if you really want to invest on your project, there is a higher chance of success.

4. Lack of passion

Passion is what keeps us motivated, without passion, we cannot spend the hours required to build a successful business. Especially when starting a business, we won’t be making money overnight, it will take time. Now,  If you are willing to work for free for what you are doing, that means you really are passionate about what you do. If you are willing to work for free, imagine what you can build if you get paid for what you do.

5. Loose focus

This occurs more often when the company is not yet profitable. In fact, when we have an idea, we need to know if people are willing to pay for it. While doing this research, you will see that everyone has problems in their businesses and they are all very different. Everyone will redirect you to another direction related to their own point of view. So, it is preferable to be open to feedbacks, but at the same time, able to redirect people to the right product when the idea is out of your reach.

6. Give up too soon / lack of experience

7. Not listening to feedbacks

After creating a product, you will need to redesign parts of it from the beginning, it is quite important to listen to those feedbacks especially when people are using the product and suggest things to improve the product. Listen to what they have to say, they are the one that allows you to be in business. Of course, I am not like saying, listen to every single people, but listen to people and according to your goals, make the move if you think it is right.

To conclude, I added a link from a study from CB insights listing the main reason why startups fail from over 101 startups. link:  https://www.cbinsights.com/blog/startup-failure-reasons-top. Just to show you that this is not only what I think but what other startups encounter on their journey.

If you have any other reasons why your startup failed, you can comment below and share your experience with us.

failure, startups