Startups could fail for a variety of reasons. I’ve tried to list a few that come to mind:
- Concept was not relevant for the intended target audience i.e. was your targeting wrong? Could the concept have been more meaningful for a different set of customers (e.g. in a different geography, in a different age group, in a different income group, etc.)
- Product or service was not good enough or as promised i.e. was there an issue with the quality of the product or service? If customers signing up but not staying with back, it indicates that the concept was relevant but the experience with the product or service was not good enough
- The business model was not right e.g. for a services business could you have done a pay-per-use or pay-per-month basis instead of a one-time license fee?
- Pricing was not right
- Implementation was flawed… operational inefficiencies, process inconsistencies, etc.
- Processes were not in place for the startup to scale up
- The startup was resource starved – e.g. not enough budgets to market, not enough people resources to implement, etc.
- Was the communication not good enough? Was the media plan not good enough? i.e. was the messaging through your brand communication material relevant, meaningful and compelling for your audience? Was the brand personality in line with what your customers expected?
- Was the media planning not good or inappropriate? i.e. Media planning has two key components – reach and frequency. Reach is about how many people within your target audience you reach. Frequency is about how many times you reach those folks. E.g. for Rs.10 per CPC, with a budget of Rs.10,000, you could reach a 1000 people once, or you could reach a 100 people 10 times. Some concepts need reinforcing of the message, and hence higher frequency before customers convert. Analyze if your planning of media reach and frequency was right
This article was previously published on my blog – The Hub for Startups
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Recommended reading on the same topic: 7 biggest reasons why startups fail