Member-only story

The Five Things That Kill Early Stage Startups

brett fox
6 min readDec 19, 2023

--

Startups are fragile, and early stage startups are unbelievably fragile. There are so many things that can kill your startup that it would make your head spin.

Picture: Depositphotos

However, the five things I will review today are the most common problems that CEOs run into. I’ll also explain how you’ll need to protect yourself from these things happening. Spoiler alert: none of them are money.

Why A Lack Of Money Is Almost Never The Reason A Startup Fails

A lack of money is a symptom of other problems a startup has. Money is rarely the cause of the problems.

The five things I will explain today are the causes of startup failure. So, let’s start with number five on our list:

5. Your co-founder isn’t a true believer in your startup.

Over 50% of all co-founder relationships fail. And having a co-founder that doesn’t really believe is one of the two most likely reasons a co-founder relationship doesn’t work out.

I’ve sean this happen to many of the CEOs I’ve worked with. And, I had this happen to me too. Let me go through the details because I think it’s instructive.

--

--

brett fox
brett fox

Written by brett fox

I work with startup CEOs to help them grow their businesses . I built several businesses from $0 to >$100M. Learn more at

Responses (6)