Week 9: Startup Success

Startups, more than other ‘entrepreneurial’ businesses such as a sole Proprietorship, working freelance, franchise businesses — you get the idea — have a steep stress curve. And a failure curve.

Just to clarify — Startups are defined as “A startup company is an entrepreneurial venture which is typically a newly emerged business that aims to meet a marketplace need by developing a viable business model around a product, service, process or a platform”. This is different than say going freelancing as a website designer cause you are super skilled at it.

While you want to make sure any business you start has a need and a market, Tech startups, compared to service programs have a higher cost to get of the ground, and the success rate is even bleaker.

90% of startups fail, according to a Forbes article.

75% of Venture-backed companies fail, according to a FastCompany article. And these are companies who have potentially met all the stringent criteria of traction and market-fit to receive funding in the first place.

And what are seven reasons for entrepreneurs experiencing business failure? According to the Entrepreneur Magazine they are:

Lack of focus (I am focused, but I also seek balance.)

Lack of motivation, commitment and passion (Nope .. I have dreams about this)

Too much pride, resulting in an unwillingness to see or listen (I am looking for advice)

Taking advice from the wrong people (How would I know they are leading me down the wrong path? Cause I don’t know what I don’t know?)

Lacking good mentorship (Can you see how many of these points are dependent on other people?)

Lack of general and domain-specific business knowledge: finance, operations, and marketing (I have domain knowledge on the subject of Alcye. Need to find experts in these areas. Again, other people.)

Raising too much money too soon (Haven’t even started. Bootstrapping thus far)

Why am I going on about this? Because Alcye is a tech startup. It is a web platform to increase engagement within learning communities. Alcye wants to create a world where people’s learning journeys are more connected, supported and successful. I am super passionate about creating this community for adults. And I obviously want this to be a success.

Our time at the Impact Hub Workforce accelerator is drawing to a close and there is still so much that needs to be figured out. But then, we can’t boil the ocean in a day, or in 11 weeks.