19. Burn out
Responsibilities and volume of work to grow a start-up are a heavy burden to carry, and often founders underestimate that: in the 8% of cases, burn out determines the end of the company (8%).
18. Do not use your network
Another reason is about the lack of engagement of your personal and professional connections, which is around the startup. Often, the issue is not the absence of a network but the fact that significant people, as the investors, are not actively engaged by founders (8%).
17. Legal challenges
Sometimes a startup can evolve from a simple idea to a world of legal complexities that can prove to be a core cause of shutting a startup down (8%).
16. No financing or interested investors
In other cases, failure is caused by no funding or interest for the startup’s product/service by the investors (8%).
15. Bad location
The location affects the success of the company in two different ways. On one side, there has to be congruence between your startup’s concept and location: a product working well in one place, maybe is not good enough in another one. On the other side, location has an important role in failure for remote teams. If your team is working remotely, make sure you find effective communication methods, else lack of teamwork and planning could lead to failure (9%).
14. Lack passion and domain expertise
Lack of interest for the product/service domain determines the failure in the 9% of startups. No matter how good an idea is, if there is no real interest for the product you are very close to shutdown.
13. Pivot gone bad
Pivoting for pivoting’s sake is worthless. It should be a calculated affair, where changes to the business model are made, hypotheses are tested, and results are measured. Otherwise, you can’t learn anything (10%).
12. Disharmony with Investors/Co-founders
Discord with a cofounder or with an investor was a fatal issue for startup post-mortem companies: it is the cause for failure in the 13% of startups analyzed.
11. Lose focus
There are many things that can quickly get ugly and distract the team from the startup development. Other projects, private issues, loss of interest are only some examples of the reasons that can bring to failure (13%).