Why 90% of Startups Fail: Data-Backed Lessons for Founders
CB Insights analyzed 100+ startup post-mortems. Here are the real reasons startups fail—and how to avoid becoming another statistic.
Expert strategies for validating business ideas, understanding markets, and building successful startups.
CB Insights analyzed 100+ startup post-mortems. Here are the real reasons startups fail—and how to avoid becoming another statistic.
Airbnb validated their market with air mattresses. Here's the complete playbook for market research that actually predicts startup success.
CB Insights analyzed 100+ startup post-mortems. Here are the real reasons startups fail—and how to avoid becoming another statistic.
Mailchimp, GitHub, and Craigslist all started as side projects. Here are 15 validated ideas you can test while keeping your day job.
Airbnb validated their market with air mattresses. Here's the complete playbook for market research that actually predicts startup success.
Skip the expensive market research. These 10 free tools help you validate demand, analyze competition, and test your startup idea before building.
How to use Reddit for market research, find pain points, and validate startup ideas. Includes subreddits by industry, search techniques, and ethics.
Learn to calculate TAM with top-down and bottom-up methods. Real SaaS examples, investor expectations, and common mistakes to avoid.
Learn how to analyze competitors systematically with our free template. Covers direct vs indirect competitors, positioning, and finding competitive gaps.
Practical tactics from founders who went from zero to their first paying customers. No theory, just what actually works.
Eric Yuan saw Zoom's opportunity in 2011—while working at Cisco. The trick isn't spotting trends. It's timing them. Here's how to find ideas at the right moment.
Confused about MVP vs prototype? Learn the key differences, when to build each, and avoid the costly mistake of building the wrong thing first.
Stewart Butterfield accidentally built Slack while his gaming company failed. Patrick Collison built Stripe because he was a developer who hated payment APIs. Here's why who you are determines what you should build.
The Mom Test-approved questions that reveal what customers actually need. Copy these questions and use them in your next customer discovery interview.
Juicero raised $120M and failed because nobody asked basic questions. This checklist would have killed bad ideas and saved good ones. Use it before you build.
Salesforce grew through enterprise sales. TikTok grew through viral loops. The validation approach that works for one will fail for the other. Here's how to validate each.
Drew Houston got 75,000 signups for Dropbox before writing a line of code. Here's the validation playbook smart founders use to test ideas fast.
A lawyer got sanctioned for citing fake cases ChatGPT invented. Now imagine basing your startup on that same technology. Here's why AI research tools fail—and what to use instead.
Basecamp, Reddit, and Notion all started from founder frustrations. Here's how to systematically mine customer pain points to discover startup ideas worth building.
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