Unfortunately, many entrepreneurs seem to prefer to fail their way to the top, rather than do some research and learn from the successes and mistakes of others. It seems to be part of the "fail fast, fail often" mantra often heard in Silicon Valley. As an advisor to many startups, I'm convinced it's an expensive and painful approach, but I do see it used all too often.
In general I try to focus on the positives and tell entrepreneurs what works, but sometimes it's important to reiterate the common things that simply don't work. I remember a recent book by MJ Gottlieb, "How To Ruin A Business," that highlights failures. He humbly outlines fifty-five of his own less-than-stellar business anecdotes over a career in business for all to see and avoid.
Here is my selection of the top ten things to avoid from his list that I have seen lead to failure most often. I'm sure each of you could add one or two more from your own experience, and I'm desperately hoping that together we can convince a few aspiring entrepreneurs to avoid some practices that lead to losses and suffering:
If all these failures seem intuitively obvious to you, why do I see them repeated over and over again by new entrepreneurs? Perhaps it is because entrepreneurs tend to let their egos cloud their judgment, they don't like to be told what to do, or because there is no single blueprint for business success.
The good news is that, according to the "DNA of an Entrepreneur" study a while back, almost nine in ten entrepreneurs (87%) found more satisfaction from running a small company than working in a large one, even with the pitfalls outlined here. I suspect that most of these have failed their way to this top satisfaction.