Technology
Why Startups Fail: Here’s the 20 Most Common Reasons
For anyone who launches a new venture, there’s a grim reality involved: eventually 90% of startups bite the dust, and 51% of all businesses die off within a period of five years.
While failure is not fatal, there’s definitely no harm in stacking the odds in your favor in the first place. With some proper insight and critical thinking, the chance of a venture’s success can be increased by mitigating some of the most common startup risks.
That’s why it is not enough to know how many startups fail – we must know why startups fail.
CB Insights, a venture capital database, did their homework based on 101 startup post-mortems to pin down causes on why startups failed. Here’s the results in infographic form:
Why Startups Fail
The most common reason for startups to meet the grim reaper was a dreaded lack of “product/market fit”.
In other words, a startup was unable to satisfy a real market need with its product. Famed investor Marc Andreessen says that product/market fit is so important, that the lifespan of a startup can be broken up into two parts: before product/market fit, and after the fit is achieved. Once it is obtained, it’s a game-changer that increases the chance of success tremendously.
Presumably, the startups that never achieve such a fit end up in the graveyard. The analysis from CB Insights above agrees, showing 42% of startups fail because they do not solve a real market need.
The two other major reasons why startups fail include running out of cash (29%) as well as not having the right team (23%).
Inevitably, there’s no changing the fact that the vast majority of startups will meet their bitter end. That said, a better understanding of the above causes of failure may help to mitigate the risks of any new venture. And even if a startup does meet its maker, the founder may still have another shot: failed entrepreneurs often find more success the second time around.
As Winston Churchill says: “Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts.”
Original graphic by: Lance Surety Bond Associates
Markets
Charted: What are Retail Investors Interested in Buying in 2023?
What key themes and strategies are retail investors looking at for the rest of 2023? Preview: AI is a popular choice.
Charted: Retail Investors’ Top Picks for 2023
U.S. retail investors, enticed by a brief pause in the interest rate cycle, came roaring back in the early summer. But what are their investment priorities for the second half of 2023?
We visualized the data from Public’s 2023 Retail Investor Report, which surveyed 1,005 retail investors on their platform, asking “which investment strategy or themes are you interested in as part of your overall investment strategy?”
Survey respondents ticked all the options that applied to them, thus their response percentages do not sum to 100%.
Where Are Retail Investors Putting Their Money?
By far the most popular strategy for retail investors is dividend investing with 50% of the respondents selecting it as something they’re interested in.
Dividends can help supplement incomes and come with tax benefits (especially for lower income investors or if the dividend is paid out into a tax-deferred account), and can be a popular choice during more inflationary times.
| Investment Strategy | Percent of Respondents |
|---|---|
| Dividend Investing | 50% |
| Artificial Intelligence | 36% |
| Total Stock Market Index | 36% |
| Renewable Energy | 33% |
| Big Tech | 31% |
| Treasuries (T-Bills) | 31% |
| Electric Vehicles | 27% |
| Large Cap | 26% |
| Small Cap | 24% |
| Emerging Markets | 23% |
| Real Estate | 23% |
| Gold & Precious Metals | 23% |
| Mid Cap | 19% |
| Inflation Protection | 13% |
| Commodities | 12% |
Meanwhile, the hype around AI hasn’t faded, with 36% of the respondents saying they’d be interested in investing in the theme—including juggernaut chipmaker Nvidia. This is tied for second place with Total Stock Market Index investing.
Treasury Bills (30%) represent the safety anchoring of the portfolio but the ongoing climate crisis is also on investors’ minds with Renewable Energy (33%) and EVs (27%) scoring fairly high on the interest list.
Commodities and Inflation-Protection stocks on the other hand have fallen out of favor.
Come on Barbie, Let’s Go Party…
Another interesting takeaway pulled from the survey is how conversations about prevailing companies—or the buzz around them—are influencing trades. The platform found that public investors in Mattel increased 6.6 times after the success of the ‘Barbie’ movie.
Bud Light also saw a 1.5x increase in retail investors, despite receiving negative attention from their fans after the company did a beer promotion campaign with trans influencer Dylan Mulvaney.
Given the origin story of a large chunk of American retail investors revolves around GameStop and AMC, these insights aren’t new, but they do reveal a persisting trend.
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