

Most Startups Die Before Launching, Some Die After - yankoff
http://www.valleyofdeath.biz

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jimboyoungblood
This is pointless and misleading.

For example: #3 on the "top" list is Danger. According to crunchbase (where
this site gets its data from) it was acquired for $500MM. And the founder went
on to start Android. Why does it matter that danger.com is now dormant?

~~~
_delirium
I agree, though I think it's more likely to be wrong in the other direction.
There are definitely examples like Danger, but also many examples of
effectively dead (or at least, zombie) companies where you can still reach a
webserver.

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RedwoodCity
If $153 billion was invested and some $3 billion in investments will never be
recaptured, as the figures suggest, that there is roughly a 2% chance that the
money will be lost.

It is still good to be a VC.

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unreal37
On the top list is "Official Virtual DJ" which claimed $170MM in funding.
Never heard of it. I doubt this is real. Is it possible the founders lied
about funding? Why wouldn't I create my own Crunchbase profile and claim $1
billion in funding?

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lowglow
Why do most start-ups die before they're ever launched?

~~~
kintamanimatt
Flaky founders.

Running out of cash.

Wantrepreneurs at the helm instead of entrepreneurs.

Pressure from "friends", family, etc to chase after the cubicle with
fluorescent lighting rather than the apparently riskier start-up.

Fear.

Realizing the idea isn't as good as was originally thought and moving on to
greener pastures.

Lack of technical expertise to get the product ready.

Regulatory restrictions that prevent the idea from moving forward.

Crappy credit that prevents the founders from being able to accept card
payments, or worse yet, being in a jurisdiction where payment solutions are
stuck in the stone age.

Most grim: death of a founder.

However ... a lot of these start ups appear to have just changed their name,
been acquired, or otherwise pivoted into something new, which makes it look
like hundreds of millions have been poured into companies that have just
disappeared. They may not have updated their Crunchbase profile either, so I'm
not sure how much stock I'd put in the stats, but I do think it's true that a
lot of start-ups fizzle out before they even begin.

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jvoorhis
I knew I wasn't the only one thinking of CrunchBase analytics. It's a good
resource that's worth digging through and making sense of, but,

"""1. Startup's list Throught crunchbase (api). Put everything in db."""

Throught [sic]? They also need some better metrics than cash in/out before
this helps.

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andygcook
Are these numbers from the inception of CrunchBase? What year was it started?

~~~
khakimov
right, from CrunchBase (later going to try add <http://angel.co/> too),
<http://www.crunchbase.com/api>

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einhverfr
Almost every startup dies. Those that succeed are those that refuse to stay
dead. Failure is but a stage on the road to success.

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carsongross
There but for the grace of God (and Heroku) go I.

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vishaldpatel
We died after :(

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adventureful
Should also calculate the size of the home page against the date of the first
funding (rather than just the dns / http response).

If a startup was funded with eg $3 million in 2007, and their supposed
homepage is something like sub 3kb (10kb?) in size but responding, they're
either dead (with a living domain) or they moved.

TheGlobe.com for example has a responding site, but they're dead as a door
nail.

