

Why Your Start-up Will Fail - drm237
http://www.forbes.com/entrepreneurs/2007/09/24/yahoo-google-tivo-ent-manage-cx_ws_0924startupfailure.html
An oft-cited study estimates that just two-thirds of all start-ups see their second birthdays, and less than half make it to their fourth.<p>Whatever the exact figures, no one would argue that scores of budding new ventures die on the vine. One of the most common killers: lack of focus.
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sanj
I read a lot of stuff by startup pundits. Obviously YC, but also rants by Joel
Spolsky, Wil Shipley and others. Each offers something to the mix.

Sadly, I've never found anything of note in the writings of Wil Schroter. It
mostly seems like a list of flaccid truisms. Has anyone else found nuggets of
wisdom in there?

Read PG's stuff on Why Not Not to Start a Startup instead. Way more
considered.

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Alex3917
"Sadly, I've never found anything of note in the writings of Wil Schroter."

I was talking with a girl the other day who had confused him with Ben
Casnocha, which I thought was pretty funny.

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wschroter
i don't know what's more sad, the fact that she thought I was ben casnocha or
the fact that i'm less popular than ben casnocha.

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Alex3917
I know Ben's writing has been accused of being trite, but isn't feeling sorry
for his readers a bit harsh?

/joke

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jamiequint
I hate "welcome" screens

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mechanical_fish
Yes, the top two reasons why Forbes will fail are:

1\. a startup screen that smells strongly of 1998;

2\. that annoying sound which emerges faintly from your speakers as you read
the article. It turns out that it's coming from the video ad that has been
thoughtfully placed at the top of the screen to remind you, the reader, that
you have just been linkbaited.

I hope for Forbes' sake that I accidentally _clicked_ on that video ad,
because audible ads that play automatically are a harbinger of doom, like
finding an angry black cat underneath your broken mirror.

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bdr
I'm doing some screen-scraping type stuff right now, and Forbes has the
nastiest HTML I've ever seen on a big site. I don't think it means they'll
fail though.

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drm237
Have you looked at MySpace's html yet? Good luck with that...

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adrianwaj
Other reasons why startups fail:

Observations from 10 Months at a Startup:
[http://www.tortoiseandachilles.com/2007/09/observations-
from...](http://www.tortoiseandachilles.com/2007/09/observations-
from-10-months-at-startup_03.html)

10 more reasons why web startups fail:
[http://www.jroller.com/dscataglini/entry/5_more_reasons_why_...](http://www.jroller.com/dscataglini/entry/5_more_reasons_why_web)

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run4yourlives
Wow, they're really milking that 12 ad a page slide-show aren't they?

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eusman
Graham's "how not to die" is closest to my mindset

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ideas101
The startup fail for various reason but most common reasons are 1\. Idea: Bad
idea, not a realistic idea etc. 2\. Time: Right idea but bad timing 3\. Team:
Lacks of skills, confidence, collaboration within. 4\. Money: Too much or not
enough money, unwise spending on marketing, PR, salaries etc. 5\. Focus: team
is not focused on the idea 10000000000%.

