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Top reasons beginners fail

Updated: Aug 21, 2021

Startup has three major chapters. Make the product. Find the target people. Go to market and propose to them. Most beginners fail at all three elements.

  1. They can not make a quality product because they are financially ill prepared. If you don't have the product, investors won't give you investment. If you don't have quality, you can not beat the competition and make profits.

  2. They don't know the importance of targets - they want to target some strangers unseen. They expect magics to happen. It is like sending 100 xeroxed love letters to 100 people and propose marriage, hope a few would immediately say yes. Newbied don[t know the necessary and power of focus. Veterans go after focused people and make business happen. Newbie don't focus and take chances by keep all options open.

  3. Beginners think that the market is open. It is not. Market is where a lot of people make their living. They are guarded by bouncers. "Marketing" means beat a path through the bouncers. (Market is where 90% of people on earth makes a living, hence guarded with life and deceit). A startup is 1 part product making and 9 part marketing.

If money is not a problem, every startup entrepreneur will succeed, because they can correct.

By the way, the world "fail" is never true. Failure is your teacher. Getting a failure is a success. However, some people do not have time or reputation to recover from bad judgement. There are simply too many ways to fail. Startup is cruel - learning is by physically making mistakes, and learning everything beyond books on the fly.

Most beginners fail because they are ill prepared. However, until you launch, you will never know you are ill prepared.

All ideas are good. It takes an EXPERIENCED GENIUS to figure out how to execute an idea. Startups fail because the founder is not prepared. The only way to prepare is the first experiential failure. Success is reading the book of failures. The failures are the real knowledge and the valuable knowledge.


Value is quality, and quality takes money to build. In startup, you spend a lot of money to build quality, and then sell A LOT OF the quality items to make up for the investment. It is the same for a date of yours to say "I do".


You must focus, must specialize. Extreme specialization first, scaling later. If you serve a lot of people that is the result of expansion and growth, not initial plan. You specialize in processes. You specialize in people.


To succeed at startup, you must ace the "Book of Failures", the biggest book there is. Your objective is to know where ALL THE TRAPS are. You go through the creation of technology, the conquering of marketing, and the winning of customer's approval.
 
Success is knowing every way things can fail.

Value proposition validation is a buyer saying "I pay".

Beginners are under prepared. Seriously, the first failure is only the proper preparation and induction. So everyone is under prepared.


Beginners under estimate the challenge in the real word, and do not understand how hard the competitors work, how difficult it is to win customers, how hard it to control quality, and how almost impossible to make profits. It all seems and sounds easy, like this

You are failing because you never failed.

"O I will launch something, make an MVP, find some people on social network, they will buy from me, and I will keep going like this ... "


Well, it is a fake idea, a wishful thought. But only failure can really educate a man, a teacher won't.

 







 
Startup failures are inevitable. So take your first step.

Good judgement comes from only experience, not books. Not ideas. But experiences are mostly results of bad judgements. A beginner who does not recognize the risks is not stupid, he/she is not yet experienced the failures and the excruciating difficulties of reaching quality, entering the market, and win the hearts of picky customers.

 

Sadly, entrepreneurs fail because they don't have money. Entrepreneurial success needs experience, and money can buy experience.


Your failure is attributed to not understanding the following straight truths:

  1. Your knowledge is limited, and startup is to build know how USING knowledge.

  2. You are your biggest enemy. You are not aware that you are not aware of things. No matter how people try to convince you, you won't listen. So mistakes are honorable and unavoidable. Most veterans won't spend time "preaching" to beginners.

However, the launch and failure will create invaluable experience, which will earn you reputation and strength. There is no other way to get that experience.



 

links to articles about startup failures and how to "embrace" them.


Real cases of startup failures

Top reasons beginners fail

For startup, the first failure is mandatory and it is the success!

Why companies start for 3-4 years before they fail?

Top 10 Indian startups that closed in 2019

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