As entrepreneurs, our relationship to failure is redefined
Any new enterprise is a groping forward from one failure to the next.
Failure is another word for learning what doesn’t work.
Split testing
Pivot
Iterate
Course correct
Feedback
Innovation & Entrepreneurship - From Basics to Open InnovationNikolaos Vaslamatzis
Innovation & Entrepreneurship basics - how to think like an entrepreneur and models, analytical tools and frameworks to further develop a business idea, explore a market and develop a minimum viable product (mvp).
Presentation based on Harvard Business Review article: "What is Disruptive Innovation?", by Clayton M. Cristensen, Michael E. Raynor, and Rory McDonald – December, 2015 issue.
The theory of disruptive Innovation was introduced in the article: "Disruptive Technologies: Catching the Wave", by Joseph L. Bower and Clayton M. Christensen from the HBR january–february 1995 issue.
Innovation & Entrepreneurship - From Basics to Open InnovationNikolaos Vaslamatzis
Innovation & Entrepreneurship basics - how to think like an entrepreneur and models, analytical tools and frameworks to further develop a business idea, explore a market and develop a minimum viable product (mvp).
Presentation based on Harvard Business Review article: "What is Disruptive Innovation?", by Clayton M. Cristensen, Michael E. Raynor, and Rory McDonald – December, 2015 issue.
The theory of disruptive Innovation was introduced in the article: "Disruptive Technologies: Catching the Wave", by Joseph L. Bower and Clayton M. Christensen from the HBR january–february 1995 issue.
Intrapreneurship: Innovation That No One Talks About
It’s about time we celebrate the entrepreneur! With the death of Steve Jobs, entrepreneurs have become the most admired people of our time even more so than athletes and celebrities. Popular television shows like “Shark Tank” have highlighted this trend as well.
We talk R&D and innovation but rarely do we hear much about the entrepreneurs within our organizations, the intrapreneurs. We’ll explore the inner workings of an intrapreneur, discuss the value these individuals bring to their organizations and share ideas on how you can unleash the intrapreneur within you to help build your personal brand value.
Ryan Kauth, director, Small Business Development Center at UW-Green Bay
Since 1998 Ryan has been advising small business owners, entrepreneurs and their leadership team members on marketing, cash flow and growth strategies. He continues to do this today at his alma mater at the UW-Green Bay Small Business Development Center, a role he accepted after working in business banking for five years.
Also a marketing and finance adjunct faculty member, Ryan lives with his family in Manitowoc County, where he and his wife grew up, and enjoys volunteering with regional and local economic development and Chamber efforts (including Young Professional Networks), on nonprofit boards, for nonprofit causes and at church.
80 percent of businesses hardly past their first anniversary. The rate of survival shrinks as the year go by. After ten years, only seven out of ten businesses are likely to survive.
Some of the reasons responsible for this high failure rate are factors that are avoidable. Unfortunately, many entrepreneurs ignore these factors.
This slide highlights some of the reasons why small businesses fail.
This Power Point article is about the difference between entrepreneurship and intrapreneurship. It has been written by Russell Bowyer. Towards the end of the presentation is an info-graphic showing the seven differences between entrepreneurship and intrapreneurship...well this is on the actual article.
In this presentation, I will be looking at the following subjects:
- Entrepreneurship
- Intrapreneurship
- Difference no. 1. Ownership of a business
- Difference no. 2. Financial loss
- Difference no. 3. Financial gain
- Difference no. 4. Dependency
- Difference no. 5. Fund raising and capital
- Difference no. 6. Resources
- Difference no. 7. The ultimate say
- Infographic on the difference between entrepreneurship and intrapreneurship (on the original article)
- Examples of successful entrepreneurship
- Examples of successful intrapreneurship
I shall begin by explaining what an entrepreneur is versus what an intrapreneur is, before running through the differences between the two.
No startup business experiences the same journey to success, but there are general stages that most companies move through as they grow:
1) Validation
2) Product Development
3) Commercialization
4) Scale/Growth
The Center for Entrepreneurial Innovation (CEI) helps its clients through these stages of business development and offers best practices for each stage. Represented by an amazing lineup of speakers, including Hart Shafer (Innovation Coach / Founder, Theraspecs), Eric Miller (Principal, PADT Inc.), Nate Curran (Entrepreneur-in-Residence, CEI) and Russ Yelton (CEO, Pinnacle Transplant Technologies, "The Startup Lifecycle" presentation offers unique insights and best practices for entrepreneurs growing their business.
An interesting summary of the key takeaways from the famous innovation management book "The innovator's dilemma". The book won Global Business Book Award and was the best business book of the year in 1997.
The Startup Lifecycle: How to Win at Each Stage Intetics
Every startup goes through three basic stages as it strives to become the next Uber or Amazon: idea, launch, and growth. Each individual phase of this life cycle presents unique challenges that can make or break any company.
The secret to becoming a successful startup lies in knowing your strengths and weaknesses and overcoming all the obstacles you will face along your journey. Preparation is key!
Find your silver bullet here - https://intetics.com/startup
Reasons for failure of innovation; Economics of innovation; Importance of innovation management; Innovations strategies for a nation and an organization; Traits of innovative organizations; Types of innovative organizations; Management of innovation
7 common mistakes small business should avoidSusan Smith
Small and new businesses have a major disadvantage – they have a lot of catching up to do with established businesses in the industry. Therefore, every step taken by them should be based on logic and a clear understanding of the industry they function in. Here are 7 common mistakes small businesses should avoid to ensure long-term success.
Intrapreneurship: Innovation That No One Talks About
It’s about time we celebrate the entrepreneur! With the death of Steve Jobs, entrepreneurs have become the most admired people of our time even more so than athletes and celebrities. Popular television shows like “Shark Tank” have highlighted this trend as well.
We talk R&D and innovation but rarely do we hear much about the entrepreneurs within our organizations, the intrapreneurs. We’ll explore the inner workings of an intrapreneur, discuss the value these individuals bring to their organizations and share ideas on how you can unleash the intrapreneur within you to help build your personal brand value.
Ryan Kauth, director, Small Business Development Center at UW-Green Bay
Since 1998 Ryan has been advising small business owners, entrepreneurs and their leadership team members on marketing, cash flow and growth strategies. He continues to do this today at his alma mater at the UW-Green Bay Small Business Development Center, a role he accepted after working in business banking for five years.
Also a marketing and finance adjunct faculty member, Ryan lives with his family in Manitowoc County, where he and his wife grew up, and enjoys volunteering with regional and local economic development and Chamber efforts (including Young Professional Networks), on nonprofit boards, for nonprofit causes and at church.
80 percent of businesses hardly past their first anniversary. The rate of survival shrinks as the year go by. After ten years, only seven out of ten businesses are likely to survive.
Some of the reasons responsible for this high failure rate are factors that are avoidable. Unfortunately, many entrepreneurs ignore these factors.
This slide highlights some of the reasons why small businesses fail.
This Power Point article is about the difference between entrepreneurship and intrapreneurship. It has been written by Russell Bowyer. Towards the end of the presentation is an info-graphic showing the seven differences between entrepreneurship and intrapreneurship...well this is on the actual article.
In this presentation, I will be looking at the following subjects:
- Entrepreneurship
- Intrapreneurship
- Difference no. 1. Ownership of a business
- Difference no. 2. Financial loss
- Difference no. 3. Financial gain
- Difference no. 4. Dependency
- Difference no. 5. Fund raising and capital
- Difference no. 6. Resources
- Difference no. 7. The ultimate say
- Infographic on the difference between entrepreneurship and intrapreneurship (on the original article)
- Examples of successful entrepreneurship
- Examples of successful intrapreneurship
I shall begin by explaining what an entrepreneur is versus what an intrapreneur is, before running through the differences between the two.
No startup business experiences the same journey to success, but there are general stages that most companies move through as they grow:
1) Validation
2) Product Development
3) Commercialization
4) Scale/Growth
The Center for Entrepreneurial Innovation (CEI) helps its clients through these stages of business development and offers best practices for each stage. Represented by an amazing lineup of speakers, including Hart Shafer (Innovation Coach / Founder, Theraspecs), Eric Miller (Principal, PADT Inc.), Nate Curran (Entrepreneur-in-Residence, CEI) and Russ Yelton (CEO, Pinnacle Transplant Technologies, "The Startup Lifecycle" presentation offers unique insights and best practices for entrepreneurs growing their business.
An interesting summary of the key takeaways from the famous innovation management book "The innovator's dilemma". The book won Global Business Book Award and was the best business book of the year in 1997.
The Startup Lifecycle: How to Win at Each Stage Intetics
Every startup goes through three basic stages as it strives to become the next Uber or Amazon: idea, launch, and growth. Each individual phase of this life cycle presents unique challenges that can make or break any company.
The secret to becoming a successful startup lies in knowing your strengths and weaknesses and overcoming all the obstacles you will face along your journey. Preparation is key!
Find your silver bullet here - https://intetics.com/startup
Reasons for failure of innovation; Economics of innovation; Importance of innovation management; Innovations strategies for a nation and an organization; Traits of innovative organizations; Types of innovative organizations; Management of innovation
7 common mistakes small business should avoidSusan Smith
Small and new businesses have a major disadvantage – they have a lot of catching up to do with established businesses in the industry. Therefore, every step taken by them should be based on logic and a clear understanding of the industry they function in. Here are 7 common mistakes small businesses should avoid to ensure long-term success.
Starting a business is hard, especially when you're a student or recent graduate. This webinar will guide you through those early stages of starting a startup, getting early traction and attracting investment. In 2014 there is a huge amount of optimism for startups and technology with a greater amount of investment and support available than in recent years but this does not mean it is easy! This webinar will equip you with the knowledge, skills and network to be able to startup and seek the first investment necessary for your business.
Matthew is a co-founder, with Christian Jakenfelds and Nick Wheeler, of @StudentUpstarts. Student Upstarts invests up to £15,000 in exchange for up to 8% into student and graduate teams to start and run their own business. Matthew and Christian also co-founded @UpstartsConnect - a co-working space in Kings Cross, London, and Matthew is a co-founder of @9others - a global network solving the problems of business that keep entrepreneurs up at night - all over a good meal with 9others.
Given the complexity of the challenges we face as leaders today, it is impossible to have all the answers. When we innovate and consider new possibilities, it is inevitable that we will fail from time to time. In this session, we will explore our willingness to deal with and learn from failure. We will consider new tools and skills to help us deal with missteps more productively – so that when we fail, we fail forward.
How To Fail: 25 Secrets Learned through FailureTaylor Davidson
25 Secrets Learned through Failure, by Taylor Davidson at Unstructured Ventures.
Visit the post on unstructuredventures.com/uv (short link to post: http://tinyurl.com/howtofail ) to add to the discussion, share your lessons learned from failure, and view more.
Embrace Failure for Better Innovation - TrendForum 2013Stefan Lindegaard
This is my presentation from the TrendForum 2013 event in Berlin. You can find a written summary on this link: http://www.15inno.com/2013/03/08/failureinnoculture/
Projects to Promotions, LLC helps non healthcare and healthcare business entrepreneurs with training, podcasts, workshops, seminars, coaching, teleconferences, etc
13 Common Entrepreneurial Mistakes Newbies Must KnowElijah Sharpe
Being an entrepreneur, individuals must need to be full of enthusiasm and passion. In fact, the tycoons have to do everything possible in order to make the things move their way. But this does not mean that they always get success, whatever they do. Actually, every entrepreneur’s make some mistakes along the way that will end up costing them.
In reality, little mistakes are the part of life but the thing matter is how entrepreneurs recover from these blunders. Getting back to the business by learning from the mistakes make it stronger. One can learn from the older businesspersons who made some trials and fails at any stage and finally get success. Hence, doing some research and listening to your market in order to understand your niche is crucial.
In this article, 13 members of Young Entrepreneur Council have shared the biggest mistake they made as a newbie. The purpose of sharing these mistakes is that one can save themselves from making the same errors. Below mentioned are a few blunders they said to avoid:
Elijah Sharpe - High performing and dynamic entrepreneur who is working towards, and with breakthrough innovative technologies. Driven to succeed as exhibited through a commitment to startup ventures and business ownership.
Starting your own business can be one of the most exhilarating life experiences.
It also can be the scariest. When you are good at something or have what you
believe is the next best product, hanging your own shingle may be the way to go.
Yet, along with it comes a bit of fear about making it on your own.
Criteria for a great marketing book: ideas from psychology, behavioral economics, marketing, advertising, and business about how to influence behavior and buying patterns at the edges of bounded rationality
Leveraging Human experience into Customer experience
Creative thinking is a skill that can be developed and improved. Creativity is not just for artists and musicians.
Commercial enterprises need to create new products and services that have value for customers. Innovation and invention require novel ideas. Businesses need to solve problems and overcome obstacles. All solutions to problems start as ideas. These are all creative endeavors.
The Purpose of Economics: lift nine tenths of mankindMBA ASAP
In a Misery of this Sort, admitting some few Lenities, and those too but a few, nine Parts in ten of the whole Race of Mankind drudge through Life.
Edmund Burke, A Vindication of Natural Society, 1756
The new economics have transformed the lives of everyone on the planet!
The notion that the nine parts of mankind could free itself from its age-old fate took hold in the Victorian era in London
It is still spreading.
Negotiating | A Practical and Principled ApproachMBA ASAP
Negotiation is a continuing problem solving process. It’s getting people with both common and conflicting interest to come together to arrange or adjust their future relationship by making a joint decision.
Strategic Management of Healthcare OrganizationsMBA ASAP
Health Care costs have been growing at an unsustainable rate. Reaching an estimated 17.3 percent of gross domestic product (GDP) in 2009, according to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), representing the largest one-year increase in history when the nation itself was in the midst of the “great recession.” Predictions are for health care costs to be 19.3 percent of GDP in 2019 (four times the 5.1 percent of GDP in 1960). Despite the high cost of health care, gaps and inequities persisted, leading to health care reform. The 2010 Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA), or commonly Affordable Care Act (ACA) is attempting to change the US health care system from a volume-based to a value-based model.
Statistics is the study of the collection, organization, analysis, interpretation and presentation of data. It deals with all aspects of data, including the planning of data collection in terms of the design of surveys and experiments.
Business statistics is the science of good decision making in the face of uncertainty and is used in many disciplines such as financial analysis, econometrics, auditing, production and operations including six sigma, and marketing research
More and more data is collected as a by-product of doing business and by government agencies.
Managerial Economics | Overview and SummaryMBA ASAP
Managerial economics deals with the application of the economic concepts, theories, tools and methodologies to solve practical problems in a business. It helps the manager in decision making and acts as a link between practice and theory.
Managing Strategic Momentum | Making Strategy WorkMBA ASAP
Strategy is usually viewed as an annual exercise at best, an event that creates a ‘product,' and not a process to be used to actually run the business
Disconnect between Strategy and Tactics
The only legitimate work in an organization is work that contributes to the accomplishment of the strategic plan.
It takes the orchestration of management as well as leadership to perpetuate these capabilities into the future.
Strategy matters even more to entrepreneurs than to established businesses. Yet lean methods for innovation also have a lot of value. The two are not in conflict; rather their reconciliation in the lean strategy process holds out hope for entrepreneurs in organizations of all sizes to become agile, effective innovators.
Any resource-constrained organization needs a strategy that defines boundaries.
Clarifying what is in and what is out of bounds ensures that experimentation is not rampant and is encouraged within those parameters.
It helps firms identify the long-term attractiveness of possible business models or market spaces before testing their feasibility.
By combining strategy and experimentation in such a fashion, all firms can greatly increase the odds of achieving lasting success
is the periodic process of developing a set of steps for an organization to accomplish its mission and vision using strategic thinking.
Putting the pieces of the puzzle together.
provides a sequential, step-by-step process for creating a strategy,
involves periodic group strategic thinking (brainstorming) sessions,
requires data/information, but incorporates consensus and judgment,
establishes organizational focus,
facilitates consistent decision making,
reaches consensus on what is required to fit the organization with the external environment, and
results in a documented strategic plan
Business Models for Writers | Content Creation, Dissemination, and MonetizationMBA ASAP
Content Production Workflow
Or
Enter the Matrix
I would like to share with you ways I have used to build and expand your brand and writer’s platform by creating a personal media ecosystem. Content is King. We all work and aspire to create great content with readers and audiences and fans in mind. We have repositories of content and ideas that can be leveraged and repurposed in different formats across multiple channels to increase awareness and capture new fans and customers. 1,000 true fans can support a sustainable artistic livelihood.
Potential readers have a wide variety of choices in the way they consume and enjoy information and content that begins as writing. You can monetize your writing by getting creative about repurposing your content across a variety of social media and sales channels. A digital first strategy focuses on taking advantage of platforms and partners that are very inexpensive and in many cases costless. Become aware of business model choices that create multiple revenue streams.
I will show you my content production workflow that stems from my writing and forms a matrix of properties that are then promoted and sold in a variety of ways. Leverage computer and web tools for content repurposing and do it all yourself. These ancillary revenue streams and promotional channels can help you support a sustainable creative living.
Strategic Thinking for Competitive AdvantageMBA ASAP
Leaders, similar to great athletes, must simultaneously play the game and observe it as a whole.
Keep perspective and see the big picture – not get lost in the action.
“All enterprises or projects, big or small, begin in the mind's eye; they begin with imagination and with the belief that what is merely an image can one day be made real.”
Vision and a sense of the future
Strategic thinking requires a mindset – a way of thinking or intellectual process that
accepts change,
analyzes the causes and outcomes of change,
attempts to direct an organization's future to capitalize on the changes.
From the Greek στρατηγία stratēgia, "art of troop leader; generalship"
Strategy is a high-level plan to achieve one or more goals under conditions of uncertainty and limited resources.
A comprehensive way to try to pursue political ends, including the threat or actual use of force, in a dialectic of wills in a military conflict, in which both adversaries interact.
Strategy is important because the resources available to achieve these goals are usually limited. Strategy generally involves setting goals, determining actions to achieve the goals, and mobilizing resources to execute the actions. A strategy describes how the ends (goals) will be achieved by the means (resources). Strategy can be intended or can emerge as a pattern of activity as the organization adapts to its environment or competes. It involves activities such as strategic planning and strategic thinking.
A device such as a word or a logo can only be considered a trademark or a service mark if it is distinctive. A distinctive word or logo is one that is capable of distinguishing the goods or services upon which it is used from the goods or services of others. A non-distinctive device is one that merely describes or names a characteristic or quality of the goods or services.
There is a spectrum of trademarks based on their strength. Devices that are fanciful, arbitrary, or suggestive are considered distinctive enough to function as trademarks.
A work or invention that is the result of creativity, such as a manuscript or a design, to which one has rights and for which one may apply for a patent, copyright, trademark, etc.
A generic trademark, also known as a genericized trademark or proprietary eponym, is a trademark or brand name that, due to its popularity or significance, has become the generic name for, or synonymous with, a general class of product or service, usually against the intentions of the trademark's holder. The process of a product's name becoming genericized is known as genericide.
Money is a transactional vehicle.
Money is any item or verifiable record that is generally accepted as payment for goods and services and repayment of debts.
The main functions of money are distinguished as:
a medium of exchange
a store of value
Any item or verifiable record that fulfills these functions can be considered money.
Economic activity relies on group agreement relative to the value of assets and their prices. When prices rise, people tend to get excited and buy more, bidding prices higher. This is called speculation or irrational exuberance. Values can only defy gravity for so long and when folks begin to realize assets may be over-priced, panic selling brings it all crashing down. Pop.
The crash which usually follows an economic bubble can destroy a large amount of wealth and cause continuing economic malaise.
Here are some of the more infamous bubble bursting events and “adjustments” that have occurred since the industrial revolution and our thinking about economics began.
This ties the earlier threads together and goes on a deeper dive into some of the challenges and issues facing managers and leaders. Now its your turn...
Explore Sarasota Collection's exquisite and long-lasting dining table sets and chairs in Sarasota. Elevate your dining experience with our high-quality collection!
Best Crypto Marketing Ideas to Lead Your Project to SuccessIntelisync
In this comprehensive slideshow presentation, we delve into the intricacies of crypto marketing, offering invaluable insights and strategies to propel your project to success in the dynamic cryptocurrency landscape. From understanding market trends to building a robust brand identity, engaging with influencers, and analyzing performance metrics, we cover all aspects essential for effective marketing in the crypto space.
Also Intelisync, our cutting-edge service designed to streamline and optimize your marketing efforts, leveraging data-driven insights and innovative strategies to drive growth and visibility for your project.
With a data-driven approach, transparent communication, and a commitment to excellence, InteliSync is your trusted partner for driving meaningful impact in the fast-paced world of Web3. Contact us today to learn more and embark on a journey to crypto marketing mastery!
Ready to elevate your Web3 project to new heights? Contact InteliSync now and unleash the full potential of your crypto venture!
What You're Going to Learn
- How These 4 Leaks Force You To Work Longer And Harder in order to grow your income… improve just one of these and the impact could be life changing.
- How to SHUT DOWN the revolving door of Income Stagnation… you know, where new sales come into your magazine while at the same time existing sponsors exit.
- How to transform your magazine business by fixing the 4 “DON’Ts”...
#1 LEADS Don’t Book
#2 PROSPECTS Don’t Show
#3 PROSPECTS Don’t Buy
#4 CLIENTS Don’t Stay
- How to identify which leak to fix first so you get the biggest bang for your income.
- Get actionable strategies you can use right away to improve your bookings, sales and retention.
2. Our Relationship to Failure
• As entrepreneurs, our relationship to failure is
redefined
• Any new enterprise is a groping forward from one
failure to the next
• Failure is another word for learning what doesn’t work
• Split testing
• Pivot
• Iterate
• Course correct
• Feedback
11. Own Your Failures
• Take responsibility
• No blaming others
• Recognize quickly when something isn’t working
• Professionalism: emotionally detach from your
ideas
• Listen and embrace feedback and criticism
• Don’t defend as the default reactionary response
• Learn, course correct, pivot, rinse and repeat
12.
13.
14.
15. On the other hand…
Never underestimate the power of getting it
right the first time.
18. Top 20 reasons for startup failure
• This list was compiled by CB Insights by
analyzing 101 startup failure post-mortems.
• They analyzed these to figure out the main
reasons startups fail.
• Startups, corporations, investors, economic
development folks, academics, and journalists
all want some insight into the question:
• “What are the reasons startups fail?”
19. Startup post-mortems
After reading through the
101 postmortems, they
learned there is rarely
one reason for a single
startup’s failure. However,
they began to see a
pattern to these stories.
20. Anna Karenina Principle
"Happy families are all alike; every
unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.”
• Leo Tolstoy
• It’s the first sentence in the classic 800+ page
novel
The Anna Karenina principle states that a deficiency
in any one of a number of factors dooms an
endeavor to failure. Consequently, a successful
endeavor (subject to this principle) is one where
every possible deficiency has been avoided.
21. • Each failure overcome is
exorcising a deficiency
and bringing us closer
to our goal
• Pain is weakness leaving
the body
• The obstacle is the way
24. #20 Failure to Pivot
Not pivoting away or quickly enough from a bad
product, a bad hire, or a bad decision was cited
as a reason for failure in 7% of the post
mortems. Dwelling or being married to a bad
idea can sap resources and money as well as
leave employees frustrated by a lack of progress.
25. #19 Burnout
Work-life balance is not something that startup
founders often get and so the risk of burning out
is high. Burn out was given as a reason for
failure 8% of the time The ability to cut your
losses where necessary and re-direct your
efforts when you see a dead end was deemed
important to succeeding and avoiding burnout,
as was having a solid, diverse, and driven team
so that responsibilities can be shared.
26. #18 Didn’t Use Network
Get your investors involved. Your investors are
there to help you. Get them involved from the
start, and don’t be afraid to ask for help. I think
we made the mistake early on of trying to do
(and know) everything ourselves, perhaps out of
insecurity over being so new to the business
world. This is a mistake.
27. # 17 Legal Challenges
Sometimes a startup can
evolve from a simple idea
to a world of legal
complexities that can
prove to be a core cause
of shutting down.
28. #16 No Financing/Investor Interest
Tying to the more
common reason of
running out of cash, a
number of startup
founders explicitly cited a
lack of investor interest
either at the seed follow-
on stage (the Series A
Crunch) or at all.
Runway
29. #15 Failed Geographical Expansion
• Location was an issue in a couple of different
ways. The first was that there has to be
congruence between your startup’s concept and
location.
• Location also played a role in failure for remote
teams. The key being that if your team is working
remotely, make sure you find effective
communication methods, otherwise lack of
teamwork and planning could lead to failure.
30. #14 Lack of Passion
• There are many good ideas out there in the
world, but 9% of startup post-mortem founders
found that a lack of passion for a domain and a
lack of knowledge of a domain were key reasons
for failure no matter how good an idea is.
• The work you do while you procrastinate is
probably the work you should be doing for the
rest of your life.
– Jessica Hische
31. #13 Pivot Gone Bad
Pivots like Burbn to Instagram or ThePoint to
Groupon can go extraordinarily well. Or they can
start you down the wrong road.
As Flowtab’s post-mortem explains,
• “Pivoting for pivoting’s sake is worthless. It
should be a calculated affair, where changes to
the business model are made, hypotheses are
tested, and results are measured. Otherwise,
you can’t learn anything.”
32. #12 Disharmony among
team/investors
• Discord with a
cofounder is a fatal
issue for startup post-
mortem companies.
• Acrimony isn’t limited
to the founding team,
and when things go bad
with an investor, it can
get ugly pretty quickly.
33. #11 Lose Focus
Getting sidetracked by
distracting projects,
personal issues, and/or
general loss of focus was
mentioned in 13% of
stories as a contributor to
failure.
34. #10 Product Mistimed
• If you release your product too early, users
may write it off as not good enough and
getting them back may be difficult if their first
impression of you is negative. And if you
release your product too late, you may have
missed your window of opportunity in the
market.
• Being right too soon
36. On the other hand…
If you are not embarrassed by the first version of
your product, you've launched too late.
– Reid Hoffman
– PayPal, LinkedIn, Masters of Scale podcast
– Book: The Startup of You
37. #9 Ignore Customers
• Ignoring users is a tried and true way to
fail. Tunnel vision and not gathering user
feedback are fatal flaws for most startups.
38. On the other hand…
“If I had asked people what they wanted, they
would have said faster horses.”
– Henry Ford
An innovator should have understanding of one’s
customers and their problems via empirical,
observational, anecdotal methods or even intuition.
They should also feel free to ignore customers’
inputs. Ford’s adherence to his vision of the mass-
market car and how to materialize that vision was
instrumental in his early success.
39. #8 Poor Marketing
• Knowing your target audience and knowing
how to get their attention and convert them
to leads and ultimately customers is one of
the most important skills of a successful
business. But an inability to market was a
common failure especially among founders
who liked to code or build product but who
didn’t relish the idea of promoting the
product.
40. #7 Product without a Business Model
• Failed founders seem to agree that a business
model is important – staying wedded to a
single channel or failing to find ways to make
money at scale left investors hesitant and
founders unable to capitalize on any traction
gained.
41. #6 User un-friendly product
• Bad things happen when you ignore what
users want and need, whether consciously or
accidentally.
42. #5 Pricing/Cost Issues
• Pricing is a dark art when it comes to startup
success, and startup post-mortems highlight
the difficulty in pricing a product high enough
to eventually cover costs but low enough to
bring in customers.
• A16z podcast on pricing
• https://a16z.com/2016/08/13/pricing/
43. #4 Get Outcompeted
• Despite the platitudes that startups shouldn’t
pay attention to the competition, the reality is
that once an idea gets hot or gets market
validation, there may be many entrants in a
space. And while obsessing over the
competition is not healthy, ignoring them was
also a recipe for failure in 19% of the startup
failures.
44. #3 Not the Right Team
A diverse team with different skill sets was often
cited as being critical to the success of a
company. Failure post-mortems often lamented
that “I wish we had a CTO from the start,” or
wished that the startup had “a founder that
loved the business aspect of things.”
45. #2 Ran Out of Cash
Money and time are finite and need to be
allocated judiciously. The question of how
should you spend your money was a frequent
conundrum and reason for failure cited by
startups (29%).
• Budgets
• Discipline
46. #1 No Market Need
• Tackling problems that are interesting to solve rather
than those that serve a market need was cited as the
No. 1 reason for failure, noted in 42% of cases.
• “Startups fail when they are not solving a market
problem. We were not solving a large enough problem
that we could universally serve with a scalable solution.
We had great technology, great data on shopping
behavior, great reputation as a thought leader, great
expertise, great advisors, etc, but what we didn’t have
was technology or business model that solved a pain
point in a scalable way.”
47. On the other hand….
In his book Zero To One, PayPal and Palantir entrepreneur
and venture capitalist (first outside investor in
Facebook) Peter Thiel claims that in business the opposite
of the Anna Karenina principle applies:
• Tolstoy opens Anna Karenina by observing: “All happy
families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its
own way.” Business is the opposite. All happy
companies are different: each one earns a monopoly
by solving a unique problem. All failed companies are
the same: they failed to escape competition.
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