Why Startups Fail : And How Yours Can Succeed

by David Feinleib

For the want-to-be entrepreneur thinking about taking the leap, the boot-strapped entrepreneur trying to energize a business three or four years in, and the venture-backed entrepreneur trying to scale, Why Startups Fail shows you the key mistakes new ventures make-and how to avoid them. Nearly everyone has an idea for a product they could build or a company they could start. But eight out of 10 new businesses fail within the first three years. Even only one in ten venture-backed startups succeeds, and venture capitalists turn down some 99% of the business plans they see. The odds appear to be stacked against you! But entrepreneurs often make the same avoidable mistakes over and over. Why Startups Fail can help you beat the odds and avoid the pitfalls and traps that lead to early startup death. It’s easy to point to successes like Apple, Google, and Facebook. But the biggest lessons can come from failure. What decisions were made, and why? What would the founders have done differently? How did one company become a billion-dollar success while another-with a better product and in the same market-fail? Drawing on personal experience as well as the wisdom of the Silicon Valley startup community, serial entrepreneur, venture capitalist, and blogger Dave Feinleib analyzes companies that have come and gone. In short, powerful chapters, he reveals the keys to successful entrepreneurship: Excellent product/market fit, passion, superb execution, the ability to pivot, stellar team, good funding, and wise spending. In Why Startups Fail, you’ll learn from the mistakes Feinleib has seen made over and over and find out how to position your startup for success. Why Startups Fail: Shows venture-backed startups and boot-strappers alike how to succeed where others fail. Is equally valuable for companies still on the drawing board as well as young firms taking their first steps. Takes you through the key decisions and pitfalls that caused startups to fail and what you can learn from their failures. Covers the critical elements of entrepreneurial success

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Year of publication:	2011
Authors:	Feinleib, David
Publisher:	Berkeley, CA : Apress
Subject:	Unternehmensgründung \| Business start-up \| Erfolgsfaktor \| Success factor \| Entrepreneurship

Extent:	Online-Ressource (196 p, online resource)
Series:	SpringerLink / Bücher
Type of publication:	Book / Working Paper
Language:	English
Notes:	Description based upon print version of record Title Page; Copyright Page; Table of Contents; About the Author; Introduction; PART 1 Market, Product, and Entrepreneur; CHAPTER 1 Poor Product-Market Fit; Product-Market Fit; Big Markets; Ride the Wave; Great Product, Bad Market; Structural Issues; Finding Fit; Reaching Your Market; When to Pivot and How; Capitalizing Too Early; Pivots That Worked; Summary; CHAPTER 2 Bad Products; Falling Victim to Product Blindness; How Bad Products Get Built; Failure to Focus; Too Much Friction to Achieve Adoption; Products That Don't Acquire More Users; Simple, Universal, and Viral The Magic of Product ChemistryDon't Ship Too Early or Too Late; Products That Don't Scale; Summary; CHAPTER 3 The Missing Entrepreneur; An Entrepreneur with a Capital E; Where's Marc?; An Entrepreneur's Quest: The Big Idea; Picking the Right Product for Your Market; Teams Without a Clear Vision Fail; Money Doesn't Help When You Don't Have Users; Hire for Operations; How to Hire Great People; Always Act Like an Entrepreneur; Focus on What You're Great At; Starting vs. Leading; Fail Fast; Summary; PART II Sales and Marketing; CHAPTER 4 Investing in Sales and Marketing Too Early The Real Cost of Spending Too EarlyRatcheting Up the Burn Is Easy-Bringing It Down Is Difficult; Don't Mistake a Lack of Product-Market Fit for Poor Execution; Understand the Traction Curve; Create Unique Value; Too Late for Hope, Too Early forTraction; Are You Ready to Throw Gas on the Fire?; Get Out There and Sell; Summary; CHAPTER 5 Losing Moneyon Sales; When Customers Cost More Than They're Worth; Ultimately, It's About Acquisition; Understand Customer Lifetime Value; Remember: Products Are Bought, Not Sold; Fight Inherent Bias; Reduce Sales Team Turnover; Get Sales Leverage The Traditional WayThe Freemium Model; Zero-Cost User Acquisition; Word of Mouth; Partnering; Repeatedly Monetizing Your Users; Making the Engine Hum; Ineffective Sales People; Bad Contracts; Mismatched Pricing; Bad Sales Process; Summary; CHAPTER 6 Invisible Startups; Startups You've Never Heard Of; Product Innovation; Viral Marketing; Social Media; Buzz; Search; Mobile; Brand; Summary; PART III Execution; CHAPTER 7 Failing to Communicate; Communicating Your Vision; Setting Expectations; Managing Board Meetings; Delivering Bad News; Delivering Good News; Communicating with Your Team Communicating with CustomersCommunicating Your Story; Summary; CHAPTER 8 Not Getting Started; Making the Leap; Build a Big-Idea Company-Not a Company of Ideas; Surviving a Lack of Capital; Control Your Own Destiny; Rent and Ramen; Nights and Weekends; Investors; Customer Financing; Building the Team; Users and Customers; Location, Location, Location; Summary; CHAPTER 9 Failing to Execute; Lack of Execution; Startups Are Fluid Organizations; Under-Resourced or Over-Resourced?; Failing to Manage Cash; Debt; Cash Flows from Product-Market Fit; Executing Early vs. Executing at Scale Hiring Help to Scale
ISBN:	978-1-4302-4141-6 ; 978-1-4302-4140-9
Other identifiers:	10.1007/978-1-4302-4141-6 [DOI]
Source:	ECONIS - Online Catalogue of the ZBW

Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10014015772