Once you put your startup on runway, you have to make sure that it takes off. It’s not just about the time and money you have. You also have to judge at what pace you should pump your money and how quickly you should reach elevation before time runs out. That’s not all. The runway shrinks too, circumstantially. You need to keep a buffer runway too, to avoid startup-crash.

But for a first timer, it was difficult to evaluate the runway accurately or to speculate the rough patches that were about to come on it. Eventually the startup couldn’t take off.

7. Earthed to revolving earth

Falling in love with your dream is not wrong.

But some first-time entrepreneurs got stuck with their dreams. Once they set a goal…that’s it! They gave no importance to periodic research and analysis. They overlooked the changing marketplace and customer needs. They ignored changing business structure with the effect of environmental factors. They forgot to re-engineer their dreams and ultimately their dream venture got stuck in a stagnant space.

8. Technology Cripple

Technology space is the fastest changing space. It is difficult to keep updated when it’s not your prime business. When there is limited technology budget, you tend to look for hiring a low-priced technology partner. You might fall in the dip of choosing the wrong technology partner; just like those startups who came to us for rescue missions.

Wrong technology partners gave them misleading advices. They were recommended use of a technology which doesn’t suffice web application’s requirements but was costly. Some tech companies advocated addition of needless features in the project. They also worked at slow pace just to increase their billing amount. This led to many technical problems, scalability issues and ultimately unfinished or failed projects.

9. Selling but not Marketing

Sales generate revenue. When you are less known in the market, you need to sell and sell aggressively. But if you are planning a long tenure in the industry, that’s not enough. You also need to build your presence with other marketing initiatives – offline & online.

Even though sales activities are subset of Marketing, and selling is its ultimate outcome, many first-time entrepreneurs just focused on sales. They believed that any marketing initiative that does not produce immediate result is a waste of time and should be replaced by another. However, the influence of marketing is slow yet powerful. Thus, due to insufficient brand presence, these companies went into the unknown zone. It caused their clients to choose their competitors over them.

10. Missing a Mentor

Every first time entrepreneur lacks one thing – Experience. You need someone experienced to guide you. You need a mentor. A mentor plays a vital role in your startup’s success and if you don’t have one, you would just be shooting arrows in dark.

Startups without any mentorship made avoidable blunders which cost them dearly. This is one of the main reasons for having a failed business.

We hope every new-bee entrepreneur will learn from this and avoid falling into the same pit and we would be working with more and more successful startups.