창업 기업들의 주요 실패 이유 10가지

창업 기업들의 주요 실패 이유 10가지

1. 계획서가 없다.

     문서화된 계획서는 아이디어가 어떻게 비즈니스로 전환되는지를 스스로 명료히 이해할 수 있도록 도와준다.

2. 비즈니스모델이 돈벌이와는 거리가 먼 경우가 많다.

3. 비즈니스 기회가 제한되어 있는 아이디어이다.

   좋은 아이디어가 좋은 비즈니스로 연결되는 것은 아니다.

4. 추진 역량이 취약하다.

   아무리 좋은 아이디어라도 실행력이 없으면 그것만으로는 아무런 가치가 없다. 어려운 의사결정, 위험 부담, 모든 책임 등 이 모든 것이 당신에게 달려있다.

5. 경쟁자가 너무 많다.

   경쟁자가 전혀 없으면 그것도 위험하다. 시장 자체가 없을 수 있다.
   간단한 구글 검색에서 10수개의 경쟁사가 뜬다면 이미 경쟁자가 너무 많다.
   당신이 비즈니스를 시작하는 소리에 MS나 P&G와 같은 잠자는 사자가 깨어날 수도 있다.

6. 지적재산권이 확보되어 있지 않다.

    투자자를 찾거나 시장에서 경쟁 우위를 점하고자 할 때에는 특허, 상표, 저작권, 영업비밀 등 지적재산권의 확보는 필수적이다.
   특히 전문 투자자들에 의한 초기 투자를 받을 때 기업의 가치평가에 결정적인 요소가 된다.

7. 경험이 없는 팀이다.

   투자자들은 사람에게 투자한다. 아이디어에 투자하는 것이 아니다. 팀원들이 해당 비즈니스 영역에서 얼머나 경험이 있는지 그 비즈니스를 이끌어갈 실제 경험이 있는지에 관심을 갖는다.
   경험이 없다면 당신의 열정에 걸맞는 경험을 가지고 당신에게 그 경험을 제공할 수 있는 파트너를 구하라.

 

8. 어떤 리소스가 필요한 지 잘 알지 못한다.

   비즈니스에 있어서 중요한 리소스는 당연히 자금이다. 그러나 마케팅 채널에 대한 접근 방법 등과 같은 리소스도 매우 중요하다.
   너무 많은 현금은 그것을 잘 관리하지 못하면 돈이 너무 없을 때와 마찬가지로 치명적이다.

9. 마케팅을 너무 경시한다.

   바이러스 마케팅이나 구전 마케팅으로 승부하려고 해서는 안된다. 효과적이고 혁신적인 마케팅 없이는 비즈니스를 유지시킬 수 없다.

10. 포기가 너무도 쉽고 빠르다.

   창업 기업 실패의 가장 일반적인 이유는 창업자의 피로도가 높아져 포기하는 경우이다. 스티브잡스나 에디슨과 같은 많은 성공적인 기업가는 온갖 역경을 극복하고 비전을 고수하여 자신의 성공을 확인하고 만다.

 

 

Monday, October 1, 2012

10 Top Reasons For First-time Entrepreneur Failure

Based on my experience as a mentor and an entrepreneur, if you fail on your first startup, you are about average. That’s not bad, but who wants to be average? Every young entrepreneur knows implicitly that startup success is a long hard road.Statistics show that the failure rate for new startups within the first 5 years is as high as 50 percent. How can you improve your odds?

Of course, a real entrepreneur always takes a failure as a milestone on the road to success. They count on learning from their mistakes, and use the experience to move to the next idea. But why not learn as well from the mistakes of others, without suffering their cost, time, and pain? In that context, I offer you my list of ten top startup failure causes, seen over and over again:

1. No written plan. Don’t believe the old urban legend that a business plan isn’t worth the effort. The discipline of writing down a plan is the best way to make sure you actually understand how to transform your idea into a business. Take heed of the words of an old country song, “if you don’t where you’re going, you might end up somewhere else.”

2. Business model doesn’t make money. Even a non-profit has to generate revenue (or donations) to offset operating costs. If your product is free, or you lose money on every one, it’s hard to make it up in volume. You may have the solution to the world hunger problem, but if your customers have no money, your business won’t last long.

3. Idea has limited business opportunity. Not every good idea is a good business. Just because you passionately believe that your technology is great, and everyone needs it, doesn’t mean that everyone will buy it. There is no substitute for market research, written by domain experts, to supplement your informal poll of friends and family.

4. Execution skills are weak. When young entrepreneurs come to me with that “million dollar idea,” I have to tell them that an idea alone is really worth nothing. It’s all about the execution. If you are not comfortable making hard decisions, taking risk, and taking full responsibility, you won’t do well in this role. Remember, the buck always stops with you.

5. The space is too crowded already. Having no competitors is a red flag (may mean no market), but finding ten or more with a simple Google search means this may be a crowded space. Remember that sleeping giants do wake up if you show traction, so don’t assume that Microsoft or Proctor & Gamble are too big and slow for you to worry about.

6. No intellectual property. If you expect to seek investors, or you expect to have a sustainable competitive advantage against sleeping giants, you need to register all your patents, trademarks, copyrights, and trade secrets early. Intellectual property is also often the largest element of early-stage company valuations for professional investors.

7. Inexperienced team. In reality, investors fund people, not ideas. They look for people with real experience in the business domain of the startup, and people with real experience running a startup. If this is your first time around, find a partner who has “been there and done that” to balance your passion and bring experience to the team.

8. Resource requirements not understood. A major resource is cash funding, but other resources, such as industry contacts and access to marketing channels may be more important for certain products. Having too much cash, not managed wisely, can be just as devastating as too little cash. Don’t quit your day job until new revenue is flowing.

9. Too little focus on marketing. Viral marketing and word-of-mouth are not enough these days to make your product and brand visible in the relentless onslaught of new media out there today. Even viral marketing costs real money and time. Without effective and innovative marketing across the range of media, you won’t have a business.

10. Give up too easily or early. In my experience, the most common cause of startup failure is the entrepreneur just gets tired, gives up, and shuts down the company. Many successful entrepreneurs, like Steve Jobs and Thomas Edison, kept slugging away on their vision, despite setbacks, until they found the success they knew was possible.

Note that the lack of a university degree or MBA is not even in the list of common failure causes. In fact, we can all point to examples of successful entrepreneurs who dropped out of college, like Mark Zuckerberg and Bill Gates, but still went on to be way above average. The most important thing you can learn in school is how to learn.

The best entrepreneurs value “street smarts,” in addition to “book smarts,” to temper their passion with reality principles, like the ones listed here, to stay ahead of the crowd. It’s good to say you never make the same mistake twice, but success is even sweeter the first time around with no mistakes. Go for it.

Marty Zwilling