Examples of Entrepreneurial Failures

Hiten Shah — Spent $1,000,000 on a web hosting company that never launched as they built the best thing they could as perfectionist without an understanding of their customers.

Robin Chase — Built GoLoco without engaging with customers and had to iterate until he founded Zipcar

Rand Fishkin — Large projects with many months of development lead to failure at Moz.

Leo Laporte — Founder of the TWiT network spent a lot of time learning everything about media, content and technology, trying to do it all on his own but didn’t know enough about finance, marketing, advertising and resources needed to establish a viable business. Only succeeded once he hired a business partner.

Michael Hyatt — NYT — made the mistake of growing too rapidly and it exceeded his ability to fund it as the company consumed all of its capital.

Sandi Macpherson — built a company that she wouldn’t use, wasn’t familiar with, and didn’t understand. Every CEO must be a product expert.

Dharmesh Shah — co-founder of HubSpot tried to run two start-ups at the same time with both feeling neglected.

Derek Sivers — founder of CD baby discussed how he needed to protect his company culture as internal disputes grew. He then realised he had to fire a bad apple.