Is it because of the infamous “8 out of 10 startups die” myth? Nope.
There are lots of reasons, but in my opinion the following two are crucial:
Lack of Entrepreneurial Talent
Sounds
a bit…rude and uninspiring? Perhaps, it does. But let’s face the truth.
Despite the fact that many reputable (and successful) businessmen
advise young entrepreneurs to “just follow your passion”, this passion
doesn’t contain a magic wand effect inside. Not being that good –
that’s the mistake one could easily fall prey to. Secondly, your
passion should fit the current market. It is very important that your
skills are sell-able and market-oriented.
Conclusion:
One
should understand that business and hobby are different notions. And if
you truly believe that your hobby means a lot more to you than just
having fun while doing something you love, you must progress and learn
on a daily basis. In other words, you should transform your interests
into your profession.
Lack of Commitment and Genuine Passion
The commitment is a foundation to build a big enterprise on. Like Conan O’Brien once said: “If you work really hard
and you’re kind, amazing things will happen”. Any startup that lacks
commitment, positive attitude and genuine passion won’t survive.
For instance, here’s what NewsTilt, a failed startup in a field of journalism, said in its “death note”: “I
think it’s fair to say we didn’t really care about journalism. We
started by building a commenting product which came from my desire for
the perfect commenting system for my blog. This turned into designing
the best damn commenting system ever, which led to figuring out an ideal
customer: newspapers. While there, we figured they were never going to
buy, and we figured out a product that people were dying to use if it
existed. But we didn’t really care about journalism and weren’t even
avid news readers. And how could we build a product that we were only
interested in from a business perspective.”
P.S. This is the excerpt from my article on Mistakes Made by Startupers (and How to Avoid Them)
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