Ideas, tips, and case studies – Avoid Your Startup Failure

  • Case Study: Quincy Apparel Part Two

    Case Study: Quincy Apparel Part Two

    In this post, I continue to look into why a promising start-up, Quincy Apparel, that had everything going for it, failed. Today I look at the launch of their first season. The story so far. The business was founded by two Harvard Business School MBA graduates Christina Wallace and Alex Nelson, Quincy Apparel was going Read more

  • Case Study: Quincy Apparel Part One

    Case Study: Quincy Apparel Part One

    Part one of four of a case study of a start-up failure. A promising business opportunity Christina Wallace completed a double major in maths and theatre studies at Emory University. She moved to New York City, where she was an artistic manager at the Metropolitan Opera.  She enrolled in an MBA program at Harvard Business Read more

  • How to avoid start-up failure: Poor Product

    How to avoid start-up failure: Poor Product

    A market is never saturated with a good product, but it is very quickly saturated with a bad one.” Henry Ford CB Insights survey of 110 Tech firms that failed found that 8% of founders blamed a poor product as a cause of their business downfall. If industrial giants launch poor products, think New Coke, Read more

  • How to avoid start-up failure: Team and/or Investor Disharmony

    How to avoid start-up failure: Team and/or Investor Disharmony

    “Entrepreneurs usually don’t listen to people. Trust them to do their job. Remember, you invested with the understanding that the project was likely to fail.” Dave McClure Even if conflicts do not lead to failure, they can impede progress. CB Insights survey of 110 Tech company failures ranks team and/or investor disharmony as number 10 Read more

  • How to avoid start-up failure: Pivots gone bad

    How to avoid start-up failure: Pivots gone bad

    A pivot is a change in strategy without a change in vision. Eric Ries You will likely have to execute a pivot during your early stages. A pivot is when you fundamentally change your business’s direction. Not many entrepreneurs get their business 100% right the first time. CB Insights ranks a pivot gone bad as Read more

  • How to avoid start-up failure: Boredom and Burnout

    How to avoid start-up failure: Boredom and Burnout

    I think people are unprepared for how hard and awful it is going to be to start a company. I certainly was.” Former Zenefits CEO Parker Conrad Burnout and Boredom ranked number 12 on CB Insights list of causes of failure. Five percent of the 110 failed Tech Companies they surveyed cited this as a Read more