To start and convert a business idea into success is a tortuous path that many entrepreneurs fail to complete.
An entrepreneur must have a lot of resistance because it is a career in the background, he must be able to adapt quickly to changing situations, he has to be strong enough to give up much of his time and he can never stop learning and improving.
The 5 Most Common Mistakes That Kill Startups
1-. Bad choice of idea
Of course, the idea plays a very important role in establishing the possible success of a startup.
Regardless of how good our idea may seem and how safe, we can be that it will work, we have to follow a process of constant validation of business hypotheses.
There are entrepreneurs who have not validated any of their business hypothesis are launched to the adventure of investing large amounts of money in their project and when they then fail, they do so in a way that leaves them in a very bad situation.
2-. Poor selection of partners
Another of the most common reasons for startup failure is the poor selection of partners.
It is common to find many entrepreneurs seeking partners not because of a real need, but because of fear of undertaking alone. There are also others who undertake with family and friends only for closeness and not for a compatibility of profiles.
Before looking for a partner, we must ask ourselves if we really need it and if we will really be compatible with knowledge, skills and character.
3-. Lack of management experience
In the early phases of the project in which the entrepreneur works alone or with a reduced staff, it is relatively easy to coordinate the team in their tasks.
The problem is that when the project starts to grow and the team gets bigger and bigger, the problems of coordination and management grow exponentially.
4-. Excessive optimism
Despite an optimistic attitude is always important when assembling a startup, an excess of optimism could lead to the failure of it, is what is known as Stockdale paradox.
This happens because an excess of optimism can generate a great frustration when the expectations are not fulfilled. If an entrepreneur is so optimistic as to think that the first will become rich, but then this does not happen, he could become demotivated to the point of abandoning the project.
5-. Excessive reliance on an investment-based model
Another quite common mistake is to launch startups without a defined business model. This is the case of Startups seeking to reach a large volume of users in the hope of attracting investors who finance that growth.
It is true that there are numerous cases of companies that have achieved success in this way, with the promise of “we will look for a business model when we are big” but it is also true that this perspective greatly complicates the viability of the company.