

Why Startups Fail: An Analysis of Post-Mortems - mayava
http://foundersblock.com/anecdotes/why-startups-fail-an-analysis-of-failure-post-mortems/

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scottkrager
#1 reason: Not listening to your customers.

That's interesting because I think that is a psychological problem more than
anything else.

Getting your product or service in front of a 3rd party (not your mother or
buddy) is scary for many people...myself included!

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mayava
Very true, but there's a difference between showing your customers a product
and not listening to them. I agree that the first step is pretty scary, esp if
you're an introverted engineer who'd rather hide in a cave and code, but the
main problem seems to be that when founders do solicit feedback, they'll hear
what they want to hear, i.e. focus on the positive feedback and underweigh the
negative. This supports a continued delusion that their product is as loved by
others as it is by them.

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scottkrager
So how do you combat that?

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mayava
A few ideas: show your product to a diverse base of customers to avoid any
super-techy or early adopter biases (unless, of course, your product is mostly
for them), quantify the findings, and be systematic about improvements. If
there are issues in areas outside your expertise, such as marketing or UX,
find professionals you respect who can advise you. Also useful to set metrics
beforehand for what you consider success/failure, i.e. # of customers acquired
within a certain timeframe, customer growth rate, engagement, etc.

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starpilot
Blogspam, original article at [http://www.chubbybrain.com/blog/top-reasons-
startups-fail-an...](http://www.chubbybrain.com/blog/top-reasons-startups-
fail-analyzing-startup-failure-post-mortem/)

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stcredzero
An analysis of post-mortems, which are themselves a kind of analysis? Shall we
all give our analysis of this?

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pontifier
I immediately thought of the Sieve of Eratosthenes.

Starting at the left of the image, you will see what is most likely to kill
your startup. Go to each item in turn, and check to see if you are handling
the situation correctly. If you get yourself a clean bill of health then your
startup is "Prime" and likely to succeed.

If you run afoul of one or more of these items, then you need to work on some
things...

I don't really want to talk in depth about how many items I feel I need to
work on, but it makes me think about factorials instead of primes.

