28 Lessons from Start-ups That Failed

Sometimes the best things we can learn, we learn from people who failed. It's great to think about Google's 20% time, or Gimlet Media's 'Mix Week," - but that's not everything. We can learn a lot of start-ups that failed. After researching failed start-ups, I found 6 major ways that start-ups failed: - They didn't understand their customers - They managed money poorly. - They didn't have the right strategy - They lacked key skills - They had bad luck. - They had the wrong founding team. Under these big areas were 28 ways that start-ups failed. Things like spending too much on marketing and talking to people who weren't customers plagued the postmortems I examined. In their stories we find the little details, the nuggets that can help us. As Otto von Bismarck said, "Only a fool learns from his own mistakes. The wise man learns from the mistakes of others.” Do that, here are 28 causes of death that any start-up can avoid.