Even though the words ‘entrepreneurs’ and ‘startups’ sound cool but 95% of startups shut down within a couple of years. There are various reasons that could be attributed to this huge failure of startups worldwide. It could be the bad business ideas, lack of understanding of public demands, choosing poor business models, inferior product quality, lack of marketing strategies and likewise. We have compiled a list of some startup ideas that many companies have adapted only to fail. You should stay away from these ideas to minimize your failure chances.
- Dating Related Ideas –
There are over 5000 dating sites and apps available on the internet and in spite of that, only a handful few names have survived like Tinder. The reason is not far-fetching as most of them are just copycat of one another with a few spins. The exclusive features are not cool enough to attract the audiences from their settled platform and there is lack of scalability of such spun ideas. If you really want to disrupt the niche, do something really unique, useful, and interesting that people never really imagined.
Reason For Failure – Lack Of Unique Ideas To Capture Large Audience
- Messaging Related Ideas –
There are thousands and thousands of messaging apps but how many of them do people really use? Most of them are based on the same fundamental idea and the unique features are very less to captivate the audiences. There is a very thin scope of prospering in this crowded space. Even if you have a unique product in this niche like SnapChat, you have to do high-level advertisement and marketing to get influencers and celebrities into your platform. 99% of messaging-related ideas have failed before they got started.
Reason For Failure – Difficult To Penetrate Through The Crowed Niche.
- E-Commerce Related Ideas-
Almost all the startup ideas designed to disrupt the established players like Amazon and other local players are sure to fail. First of all, the business model of e-commerce is highly risky. The discounts and offers can only be afforded by big players who get brand deals and huge advertisement revenues. It is impossible for a new player to offer such huge discounts for long without running into bankruptcy. Furthermore, the ad revenues, brand offers, and customer reliability factor will be the lowest for them. So many new e-commerce players come up every year only to shut down the operation within a few years due to lack of funding.
Reason For Failure – Poor Business Model. Huge Funding Required Without Any Future Promise.
- Marketplace Ideas –
Marketplaces are good startup ideas only when you are exploring a less crowded niche. So many companies have tried to replace Craiglist and eBay but failure in spite of the fact that Craiglist is on the decline. Whereas, there are various freelance websites and platforms that have come up and made a place for their sustainability and scalability. Therefore, marketplace ideas in the crowded niches where there are multiple established are going to be a failure. If you still persist, you can choose one specific sub-niche of a crowded niche to capture the market share and expand thereon. But the fact remains that unless you are building your empire in an open field, you have chances of crashing down.
Reason For Failure – Heavy Competition From Established Players In The Already Crowded Niche.
- Uber and AirBnB Type Ideas –
Just because Uber and AirBnB became successful and sustaining their success prosperously, it does not mean the same business model will be applicable to everything. There is no doubt that Uber and AirBnB have successful business models from medium to long term perspective but their applicability is questionable. Due to lack of customer development and trial run, startups are established with the philosophy and ‘build the product, customers will come’ and it leads to sure shot downfall. So many companies have literally copied Uber’s business model to provide a similar type of services in different sectors but failed miserably. You should post freelance jobs to hire experts in customer development to validate your Uber and AirBnb inspired ideas.
Reason For Failure – Lack Of Validation Of Ideas and Absence Of Trial Runs Before Full Investment.
- Commission Based Booking Ideas –
After the emergence of comparison platforms, the platforms that provide recommendations for various types of booking took a hit. All of them now provide competitive pricing and lowest price guarantee. For a startup to capture the market share even with lowest price guarantee is difficult. Therefore, with the previous business model, failure is a sure shot thing. With new business models like the way OyoRooms did, there are scopes for disrupting the entire sector completely.
Reason For Failure – Lack Of Innovative Ideas And Creative Business Models.
- Music and Video Streaming Related Ideas
After the emergence of Spotify and Netflix, hundreds of startups have come up to disrupt the established players but all their efforts went in vain. The reason for failure is the same as in case of e-commerce platforms. Netflix or Spotify offers all the latest features and their pricing cannot be beaten unless you have insanely huge funding to offer mouth-watering discounts, producing popular original shows and offering better service than the established companies. You can expand your idea to new items that are yet to have a niche.
Reason For Failure – Difficult To Replace The Established Companies In The Crowded Niche.
Before you start your startup, make sure you validate and optimize your ideas and do a short trial run by hiring some skilled people from freelance websites. Only when your trial runs are successful, you can post freelance jobs to scale it up. Make sure you research well so that your startup ideas do not fall into the category of frequently fail list.