How to ensure your startup survives at the end of 5 years

"Everyone is a founder, everyone wants to direct and lead. Entrepreneurs are rare"

Before we actually begin with the survival of the startups during the early stages, let's first understand why is it so important not just to have a look but to dive deep into the topic, provided you're an enthusiast or a founder.

Let's have a look at the data first:

• 9 out of 10 startups fail (source: Startup Genome - the 2019 report claims 11 out of 12 fail).

• 7.5 out of 10 venture-backed startups fail (source: Shikhar Ghosh).

• 2 out of 10 new businesses fail in the first year of operations (source: Bureau of Labor).

• Only 1% of startups become unicorn firms like Uber, Airbnb, Slack, Stripe, and Docker (source: CB Insights).

• The success percentage for first-time founders is 18% (source: Exploding Topics).

Credits: Failory.com

The question to be asked is, "What steps should be taken to ensure that your startup doesn't hit the wall further fall."

It all starts right from the ideation stage. The moment you process your idea and try to build a startup out of it, you'll end up taking some good and many bad decisions that later decide the outcome of your startup.

Often founders believe so highly in their product that they tend to imagine quite a successful result for their work.

Founders are optimistic by nature.

Coming from my experiences, I've seen many of my connections hitting the wall again and again with the same iterations but expecting different outcomes.

How is that even possible? Businesses aren't always blissful after all.

When you have that third-angle sight, you get to understand the happenings much better. But to most of us, that sight comes after experiencing a failure or several failures.

Again, the question is, how to execute the steps in a way that we can minimize the risk of startup failure and have a sustainable impact on the ecosystem.

Credits: Failory.com

The most important skill I've always prioritized is the art of doing fair research.

One good research in your domain and action field can teach you a lot.

Having the right resources y your side helps you minimize the void and plan effectively way before the situation starts troubling you.

With the picture above, we can clearly see the common problems for startup failure.

And it's not just for the early stages, even giant companies face the same issue.

The question WHY.

Giant companies have the right resources as well as the capital to smoothly run their business, then what causes their failure?

The answer is, their approach while scaling the company to be a giant one day!

Building a behemoth requires an immense driving force that comes at the price of friction among the foundation of the company.

Measures to be taken:

• Spent most of your initial days in market and product research.

Have thorough research for almost every stage you can think of. Make proper roadmaps (not in the head, but on docs).

• Talk to subject matter experts.

Reach out to people on various channels and seek their advice. Listen to their feedback and suggestions.

• Build a sustainable strategy at the beginning. The strategy might change in the coming days depending on new opportunities and feedback but try to stick to some of the core values that you'd like your company to reflect.

Sustainable Strategy includes planning your talent acquisition (team building), product development, sales, and marketing funnel, financial planning, risk management, operations and rest right after you validate your idea.

Often founders take action once they encounter a situation.

That's where the problem starts!

Prepare before. Prepare well.