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I Wish Someone Had Warned Me About the Real Reason Most Startups Fail
Every entrepreneur knows that most startups fail, but very few of them actually understand why.
I was three years into running a venture-backed tech company that was doing all the things venture-backed tech companies are supposed to be doing. We had a product people loved, we had a rapidly growing user base, and we’d raised a few million dollars worth of investment capital. Sure, we had our troubles. However, on the whole, the company was on an “up and to the right” kind of trajectory that entrepreneurs dream of.
But the company failed. And it didn’t fail for any of the reasons I’d always been warned about by people talking about why their startups had failed. We didn’t fail because we’d run out of money. We didn’t struggle finding product-market-fit. We didn’t get out-competed. We didn’t have a bad team.
Instead, the company failed for a reason I’d never heard mentioned by other entrepreneurs. However, in retrospect, I’m convinced it’s actually the real reason most startups ultimately fail.
Startup success comes from stability
To understand why my seemingly promising startup failed — and yours probably will, too — I should explain that…
