Why Startups Fail

Download or read book Why Startups Fail written by Tom Eisenmann and published by Crown Currency. This book was released on 2021-03-30 with total page 370 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: If you want your startup to succeed, you need to understand why startups fail. “Whether you’re a first-time founder or looking to bring innovation into a corporate environment, Why Startups Fail is essential reading.”—Eric Ries, founder and CEO, LTSE, and New York Times bestselling author of The Lean Startup and The Startup Way Why do startups fail? That question caught Harvard Business School professor Tom Eisenmann by surprise when he realized he couldn’t answer it. So he launched a multiyear research project to find out. In Why Startups Fail, Eisenmann reveals his findings: six distinct patterns that account for the vast majority of startup failures. • Bad Bedfellows. Startup success is thought to rest largely on the founder’s talents and instincts. But the wrong team, investors, or partners can sink a venture just as quickly. • False Starts. In following the oft-cited advice to “fail fast” and to “launch before you’re ready,” founders risk wasting time and capital on the wrong solutions. • False Promises. Success with early adopters can be misleading and give founders unwarranted confidence to expand. • Speed Traps. Despite the pressure to “get big fast,” hypergrowth can spell disaster for even the most promising ventures. • Help Wanted. Rapidly scaling startups need lots of capital and talent, but they can make mistakes that leave them suddenly in short supply of both. • Cascading Miracles. Silicon Valley exhorts entrepreneurs to dream big. But the bigger the vision, the more things that can go wrong. Drawing on fascinating stories of ventures that failed to fulfill their early promise—from a home-furnishings retailer to a concierge dog-walking service, from a dating app to the inventor of a sophisticated social robot, from a fashion brand to a startup deploying a vast network of charging stations for electric vehicles—Eisenmann offers frameworks for detecting when a venture is vulnerable to these patterns, along with a wealth of strategies and tactics for avoiding them. A must-read for founders at any stage of their entrepreneurial journey, Why Startups Fail is not merely a guide to preventing failure but also a roadmap charting the path to startup success.

Download or read book Why Startups Fail written by David Feinleib and published by Apress. This book was released on 2012-03-28 with total page 185 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: For the want-to-be entrepreneur thinking about taking the leap, the boot-strapped entrepreneur trying to energize a business three or four years in, and the venture-backed entrepreneur trying to scale, Why Startups Fail shows you the key mistakes new ventures make—and how to avoid them. Nearly everyone has an idea for a product they could build or a company they could start. But eight out of 10 new businesses fail within the first three years. Even only one in ten venture-backed startups succeeds, and venture capitalists turn down some 99% of the business plans they see. The odds appear to be stacked against you! But entrepreneurs often make the same avoidable mistakes over and over. Why Startups Fail can help you beat the odds and avoid the pitfalls and traps that lead to early startup death. It’s easy to point to successes like Apple, Google, and Facebook. But the biggest lessons can come from failure. What decisions were made, and why? What would the founders have done differently? How did one company become a billion-dollar success while another—with a better product and in the same market—fail? Drawing on personal experience as well as the wisdom of the Silicon Valley startup community, serial entrepreneur, venture capitalist, and blogger Dave Feinleib analyzes companies that have come and gone. In short, powerful chapters, he reveals the keys to successful entrepreneurship: Excellent product/market fit, passion, superb execution, the ability to pivot, stellar team, good funding, and wise spending. In Why Startups Fail, you’ll learn from the mistakes Feinleib has seen made over and over and find out how to position your startup for success. Why Startups Fail: Shows venture-backed startups and boot-strappers alike how to succeed where others fail. Is equally valuable for companies still on the drawing board as well as young firms taking their first steps. Takes you through the key decisions and pitfalls that caused startups to fail and what you can learn from their failures. Covers the critical elements of entrepreneurial success.

Download or read book The Fail-Safe Startup written by Tom Eisenmann and published by Penguin Business. This book was released on 2021-04 with total page 368 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Unicorn Tears written by Jamie Pride and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2018-01-17 with total page 202 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The real-world secrets to startup success Unicorn Tears is the smart entrepreneur’s guide to startups. A full 92% of startups fail in the first three years — but failure is not inevitable. Most of these companies self-sabotage, unconsciously eliminating any chance at success before they even get started. It’s not the economy, it’s not politics, it’s not external factors; failure comes from within. This book shows you how to be one of the unicorns — one of the 8% who make it. Be prepared to un-learn everything you thought you knew about startups, as author Jamie Pride busts the harmful myths that lead so many companies to failure. Drawing upon his history as a venture capitalist, he reveals what investors want to see and hear, and what final factor puts your venture firmly into the “yes” column. Pride understands what matters in startups, and what gets in the way; his Hollywood Method for start-up success gives you a proven formula based on the tried-and-true framework Hollywood uses to make movies that succeed around the globe. Case studies illustrate what success looks like on the ground, and brings a global perspective to successful entrepreneurship and the strategies that help your business grow. Learn the truth behind the eight myths of startups Adopt a proven formula for success based on Hollywood blockbusters Craft a winning pitch to bring investors — and capital — over to your side Gain real-world perspective on startups and future trends Everyone wants their business to succeed, but wanting means nothing without a solid plan and the means to implement it. Unicorn Tears helps you set yourself up for success, and gives you the tools to forge your path to the top.

Download or read book Managing Startups: Best Blog Posts written by Thomas Eisenmann and published by "O'Reilly Media, Inc.". This book was released on 2013-05-01 with total page 342 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: If you want salient advice about your startup, you’ve hit the jackpot with this book. Harvard Business School Professor Tom Eisenmann annually compiles the best posts from many blogs on technology startup management, primarily for the benefit of his students. This book makes his latest collection available to the broader entrepreneur community. You’ll find 72 posts from successful entrepreneurs and venture capitalists, such as Fred Wilson, Steve Blank, Ash Maurya, Joel Spolsky, and Ben Yoskovitz. They cover a wide range of topics essential to your startup’s success, including: Management tasks: Engineering, product management, marketing, sales, and business development Organizational issues: Cofounder tensions, recruiting, and career planning Funding: The latest developments in capital markets that affect startups Divided into 13 areas of focus, the book’s contributors explore the metrics you need to run your startup, discuss lean prototyping techniques for hardware, identify costly outsourcing mistakes, provide practical tips on user acquisition, offer branding guidelines, and explain how a choir of angel investors often will sing different parts. And that’s just for starters.

Download or read book Lean B2B written by Étienne Garbugli and published by Étienne Garbugli. This book was released on 2022-03-22 with total page 225 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Get from Idea to Product/Market Fit in B2B. The world has changed. Nowadays, there are more companies building B2B products than there’s ever been. Products are entering organizations top-down, middle-out, and bottom-up. Teams and managers control their budgets. Buyers have become savvier and more impatient. The case for the value of new innovations no longer needs to be made. Technology products get hired, and fired faster than ever before. The challenges have moved from building and validating products to gaining adoption in increasingly crowded and fragmented markets. This, requires a new playbook. The second edition of Lean B2B is the result of years of research into B2B entrepreneurship. It builds off the unique Lean B2B Methodology, which has already helped thousands of entrepreneurs and innovators around the world build successful businesses. In this new edition, you’ll learn: - Why companies seek out new products, and why they agree to buy from unproven vendors like startups - How to find early adopters, establish your credibility, and convince business stakeholders to work with you - What type of opportunities can increase the likelihood of building a product that finds adoption in businesses - How to learn from stakeholders, identify a great opportunity, and create a compelling value proposition - How to get initial validation, create a minimum viable product, and iterate until you're able to find product/market fit This second edition of Lean B2B will show you how to build the products that businesses need, want, buy, and adopt.

Download or read book Secret to Startup Failure written by Sonia Lin and published by Entrepreno's. This book was released on 2014-03 with total page 118 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: For those who are crazy enough to keep failing... Award winning entrepreneur and author of popular webcomic series EntrepreNo's: Secret to Startup Failure Sonia Lin unveils a startup life full of failures, based off her iconic humor in the webcomics that are weaved into practical themes in a startup life, coupled with words of advice to fellow entrepreneurs. The "fail fast, fail cheap, fail happy" mantra of this book commits to promoting work-life balance and the ability to look beyond and laugh at the startup life vicissitudes in order to achieve long-term entrepreneurial success. Get ready for Secret to Startup Failure to: Get over a less-than-successful launch day Pick a co-founder who provides politics-free companionship Interpret productivity from the garbage can Have an investor call on St. Patrick's Day ... and more Startup life is long, so fail where you should, and laugh when you can."