

Startup failure post-mortems - asanwal
http://www.cbinsights.com/blog/trends/startup-failure-post-mortem

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baldajan
A really nice read and great snippets of each article/blog post. I have read
some in the past, and even though I may not always agree on their reason for
failure, I can definitely relate to others. At the end of the day, building a
startup is hard, and if you're not willing to "pivot" either incrementally or
sometimes completely, you will fail.

I truly commend these founders for writing about their failures. It's hard to
admit you failed, rather alone letting the world know you dropped the ball. In
return, we can learn from them, as to not repeat the mistakes they did, but to
make our own mistakes (a bit cliche but true)

At the end of the day:

1) build something people want

2) features != product; features = bloat

3) keep learning, keep moving

The number of times I was about to give up only to realize, "wait a second, I
completely missed x" and fixed it, has paid me dividends in the past.

Reflect, correct, and kick ass ;)

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asanwal
For those interested in trends & hard data on startup failure, this may be of
interest - [http://www.cbinsights.com/blog/trends/startup-death-
data](http://www.cbinsights.com/blog/trends/startup-death-data)

~~~
nrao123
Anand,

What will be great to do if at all possible is to identity common patterns
across key sectors. Here are some patterns I have seen:

Lack of marketing/growth -Everpix, Sonar...

Lack of domain expertise - Vitoto...

No coders/programmers in founding teams- standout jobs

Product management / too many product features - intellibank...

No customer validation/didn't get out of the building / product/market fit -
groupspaces, hello parking...

Perhaps these patterns could be broken into consumer Internet / SAAS.

Of course some of these patterns are inter-related & drive each other (e.g. No
Domain expertise >> lack of customer validation >> Poor product
management/wrong features >> No growth)

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jpatokal
Nice. If the list was editable, I'd add mine:
[http://gyrovague.com/2012/12/18/wikitravel-press-seven-
lesso...](http://gyrovague.com/2012/12/18/wikitravel-press-seven-lessons-from-
a-startup-that-failed/)

Interesting how many others have also found "7 lessons" in their failures!

~~~
asanwal
Thx. We will add yours. If folks know of other post mortems we missed, leave
them in comments and we will add them.

~~~
MehdiEG
You mentioned EventVue's excellent post-mortem already. But for anyone
thinking of building a startup in that space, Josh Fraser (EventVue's co-
founder)'s follow-up post is also a mandatory read:
[http://www.onlineaspect.com/2010/10/26/a-few-words-about-
eve...](http://www.onlineaspect.com/2010/10/26/a-few-words-about-eventvue/) \-
since he posted that follow-up on his own blog, it would be worth linking both
in the article.

And if anyone is thinking of building something in the event space, read both
of these posts. And then read them again. Josh is 100% spot-on. Absolutely
nothing has changed in this industry since he wrote this (the events industry
moves at a glacial pace).

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pbiggar
Startups are hard, and failure is really hard, no matter how much you try or
how strong you try to be.

I wrote one of the articles on this list. If your startup is going badly, feel
free to reach out: paul [at] circleci.com.

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d0m
It always seems so obvious in retrospect but it's hard to think clearly when
you're in the gist of doing it and you have a mountain on your shoulders.

Something - how so stupid, I'll admit - that I realized is that even if smart
people tell you something, you often need to fail it first to really get it.

Pick the right co-founders? It's one of the most basic rules.. but how many
entrepreneurs do you know didn't listen to that.. you?

Focus on product-market fit and only a handful of few features that customers
really love..

~~~
pandler
> even if smart people tell you something, you often need to fail it first to
> really get it.

That was really emphasized for me after my first startup failed. After we
pulled the plug, all the advice I had procured in the previous months suddenly
made sense.

I think that when you hear advice, it might make sense but you don't really
understand it. It is analogous to reading a textbook and thinking you've got
it covered until you actually reproduce what you learned. That's when the real
learning happens. You just need to buck up and get your hands dirty.

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philbeene
Totally agree - very valuable resource, and in general not nearly enough
people out there actively sharing research about startup failure. Thx for
sharing.

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AJ72
Another interesting read for anyone looking for a VCs view on this topic:
[http://pollenizer.com/learn/startup-
focus](http://pollenizer.com/learn/startup-focus). A good, easy to read book
based on their experiences.

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GoldiKam
Startups are never supposed to be easy, otherwise everyone would have chose
the Start up path, regardless of any passions.

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codex
I doubt these post-mortems are accurate. If you can't create a successful
company, what makes you think you know why a company was unsuccessful? It's
just more mental masturbation. Even if the failure mode is identified, it
doesn't help you with the next startup, as most of the time humans work by
trial and error. A failure doesn't teach most how to succeed, just how not to
fail in that exact way.

~~~
simonjester
Still an outside view is usually quite objective and can pinpoint issues that
weren't easily apparent at all to someone inside the project.

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simonjester
So useful, thanks! Plus another item on the list of ideas I should have had.
;)

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paul9290
None of them got lucky...

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benjaminwootton
Amazing resource - thanks for collating this.

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billnguyen
really great insight here. thanks for gathering it.

