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Why 90%+ of Founders Fail
Founders fail because they give up.
They give up because the cost/benefit of the startup ceases to make sense.
That cost/benefit gets out of whack because founders don't receive the encouragement they need to continue.
This encouragement comes in different forms at different stages of the startup:
Idea stage: feedback from friends and family on the pitch/project-- founders need to articulate their vision and give their closest networks an opportunity to join them on the journey. It's more than sharing a pitchdeck. You need a pitch video and a way for your closest networks to share your vision with the world.
Build stage: validation from collaborators willing to invest time to help realize the founders' vision. You won't get this by trolling freelancer sites for mercenary dev shops. You need to find collaborators who are so excited by the problem you are solving that they want to build the solution. Find these people and you will have unlocked not only how to build but also a funnel for your earliest users, since these collaborators likely know or suffer the same problem you are solving and know others who suffer from it too. You need a community of believers and builders who really want to see your better mousetrap built.
Launch stage: founder MVP needs early adopters brought in by believers and collaborators from the first two stages. When everyone involved in your project knows and loves the problem you are solving, they will have powerful insights, audiences, and networks to bring you early adopters. But you need to entice these early users with upside in the vision, same as with your believers and collaborators. Reward them with early access, collaboration opportunities for insiders, time with the founders, even equity. Make your users and collaborators owners from the start-- give them skin in the game so they give you what you need to thrive (i.e. not give up) as a founder.
Growth Stage: it's validation from revenue, VC investment, and growth hackers/marketers willing to spread the product in exchange for referral rewards. There are hundreds of millions of online hustlers who will bring you users if you give them clear instructions and clear rewards. Most founders fail because they try to reach growth stage via VC investment, rather than bootstrapping their community from the start. VCs are mostly pattern-matching sheep with checkbooks. Depending on them for success is failure mode.
Hypergrowth Stage: This is the grail, when the flywheel spins and accelerates, the boulder starts rolling down hill, and every incremental user adds huge value to the network. Your community is the platform for your network. Every one of your believers, collaborators, early adopters, and growth hackers should have clear upside in you hitting hypergrowth.
The fundamental reason most founders fail is they don't incentivize and reward the people they need for the encouragement/validation that will keep them slogging and grinding.
Don't punk out and give up. Bootstrap your community with coin. Redeem the coin for access, collaboration opportunities, and financial upside. This is the promise of Web3-- play to learn/earn/own.
Hit me up if you want to hear more about coin-powered community building.
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Gabriel Leal
I think that the first thing that every entrepreneur and entrepreneurship should be clear about is that the greatest challenge is to overcome all the obstacles to achieve their goal, to enjoy these battles to turn them into victories and/or learning to grow more and more.
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Don't get obsessed with money, money is just a consequence. I always tell my team not to worry too much about profits. If you do your job well, profits will come." This is a lesson that other billionaires have thought about like Warren Buffett , who seek not to have an approach so focused on money , but on the possibilities that the strategies that are being implemented can bring . This is proven by the simple fact that Bernard Arnault did not become one of the richest men in the world until a few years ago. His gamble was one that took time to pay off, and there wasn't exactly a focus on a massive win from the start.
The entrepreneur's path is hard and results take time, it is not about money but about the passion to do what you like to do
Great article Tim
Give up its never an option and it's all about finding the way failing and learning through the process and most important HAVING FUN!
Well it's the truth, what happens is that there is no record and you don't want to start a business or those who start a business don't want to sacrifice time and effort to achieve their goals. They want the result to be just around the corner
excellent advice, thanks for your knowledge, we just need to put in the effort and a lot of patience, being very clear about the objective will give us the expected result
Hey Tim, very important question. There are just so many reasons why founders fail. Some of very quick thoughts that come to my mind:
- Most founders fail because they don’t have a clear understanding of their business and what it takes to achieve success.
- They also don’t have a well-defined strategy, which leads them to make decisions that are not in line with their business goals.
- They overcommit on their idea, and instead of taking the time to perfect their product, they rush it to market.
- They don't take the time to build a strong team or perfect their sales process.
- They often don't have a clear understanding of their customer segment.
Every founder should be ready to make sacrifices. It doesn't matter if you are a founder or not. If you are in business, you need to sacrifice something.
You are right. Most of the start-ups fail because of lack of commitment, resources, capital and focus.
It's a relatively tough journey.
Multiple reasons to fail and few to succeed. In my opinion, a lot of them fail because of a lack of perseverance. Keep pivoting and refining your model to get success. Most important is to be at it.
A well-detailed text with tips for launching a project on the digital plane, goes through various phases and points of view about it, perhaps it lacks the idea of ​​how to adapt it for its growth according to the conditions of each one.
