In my observation, startups fail way before they run out of money. Running out of money is just the period of a long run-on sentence in a company’s history. Aside from this financial ending, there are a lot of items that kill startups: many out of the hands of founders, employees, and investors. Timing, market dynamics, and regulatory environment changes are just a couple of these killers outside of our control.
However, there are quite a few cultural items that will destroy your company from the inside out…items that are almost entirely in our control. I’ve seen a couple of these items creep into teams I’ve led during my career, and I thought I’d write about them here as a precaution to anyone reading.
In no particular order, here’s the list, along with a link to the detailed post as they’re written.
- Hype-Driven Everything.
- Challenging Everything.
- Challenging Nothing.
- Leading by Comparison.
- Not Iterating.
- Acting in Self-Preservation.
- Acting With Self-Entitlement.
- Organizational ADHD
- Pretending to Be Something You’re Not (or Not Yet)
- Prioritizing Intelligence Over Wisdom.