Only one mistake kills startups
Every famous failure cause is a route to the same cliff.
Use when — you’re three weeks into building and haven’t spoken to a single potential customer.
Use when — you’re three weeks into building and haven’t spoken to a single potential customer.
In a sense there’s just one mistake that kills startups: not making something people want. Everything else — wrong team, slow shipping, bad marketing — is a route to that one cliff. (Real survival data: ~20% of new businesses gone in year one, ~50% by year five. Bad, not hopeless — and mostly self-inflicted.)
Your business is one sentence — “people with [problem] will pay for [product]” — and it’s a hypothesis, not a plan.
Treating the idea as the asset. The validated problem is the asset; the idea is a guess about it.
✓Done when — Your one-sentence hypothesis is written — and this week’s work is testing it, not decorating it.
Paul Graham, “The 18 Mistakes That Kill Startups” (2006); US BLS business survival data (~50% by year five).