Highlights from the book “50 Startup founders reveal why their startups Failed”

Parveen Yadav
Jul 28, 2017 · 2 min read

Today I read the book “50 Startup founders reveal why their startups Failed” by Thomas Oppong. You can get the book from http://alltopstartups.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/Failedstartups_ebook.pdf
Here are some insights from this book. I am just quoting them from the book.

Source:https://pixabay.com/en/golf-practice-failure-shot-swing-1802020/

You can easily start a new business but maintaining it is where the real deal is.

Almost all start up’s root problem can be traced back to lack of product traction.

Many have plans with no vision. They have endless lists of features and capabilities but no unifying vision that everyone is working toward.

They get in the ring but can’t stay in it. “persistence isn’t just key — it is everything. Getting in the ring is hard, but staying in the ring is even harder, especially when you feel beaten down, tired and alone.

Don’t operate in a market where a single player arbitrarily decides to kill you.

Trying to tackle too much at once, bypassing the minimum viable product by several orders of magnitude and in doing so, didn’t focus enough on basic values so the users keep coming back.

Instead of optimizing for actual user behaviour, spent countless white boarding sessions trying in vain to design an alternative.

Chances of getting it right the first time are equivalent to winning the lotto.

Customers pay for information, not raw data. Your service should make your customer look intelligent in front of their stakeholders.

Exciting initial launch and traction can mislead you into believing there is a larger market ready to adopt your product.

If the founding team can’t put out product on its own (or small help external help from freelancers or friends) they shouldn’t be founding a startup.

Build a community before you even start the company.

Two founders is the best number of founders.

Rushing to find people to fill roles result in bad hires. Be slow in bringing on team members and only bring on people you absolutely need because if not, you end up with many people who can’t execute but you have to manage.

Limit what you offer. It won’t work out unless you can do 1–2 things absolutely right. There’s just not enough time in the world to do 40 things well right from the start.

Your 2–3 sentence pitch needs to make sense.

Starting with technology first rather than problem first is a bad idea.

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