Daily Archives: November 19, 2014

Why You Might Fail

CB Insights analysed over 100 failed start-up businesses, and discovered that the top ten reasons for failure in order were as follows:

1. No market need
2. Ran out of cash
3. Not the right team
4. Were out-competed
5. Price/cost issues
6. Poor product
7. Needed/lacked business model
8. Poor marketing
9. Ignore customers
10. Product mis-timed

So the number one reason for new business failure, is that there was never a market for the product or service in the first place.

I can concur with this. We speak to a lot of people who have spent time a great deal of time and effort on a start up business without finding out whether there’s a big enough market for what they propose. Always do this first before investing time and effort.