[kristianc]

Well of course it is, most startups are dead on arrival.

The big pinch of salt I throw in with advice like this though is that startup failure rate hasn't dramatically shifted despite two decades of lean startup methodology, accelerators, and an entire cottage industry of startup advice. It's never the fault of the framework, mind you.

[ralph84]

If anything the failure rate has probably increased with more capital and founders chasing after the same opportunities. Being a startup founder gained prestige and became the default thing to do after college for certain types of people who before the GFC would have ended up in finance.

[apsurd]

isn't this a problem of being able to see whatever we want in the data? For example maybe more startups than ever are created in part due to access to this info. Volume increase but rate doesn't. Or maybe magnitude of success increases. Surely this is true but largely attributed to internet overall. But maybe methodologies are indeed a factor.

edit: Tobi from Shopify has an insight that relates. His north star metric is user churn. sounds crazy on its face. he's known for that. But increasing churn means you've increased top line exposure to more would-be entrepreneurs. Not all of them will succeed, but shopifys mission is to create more entrepreneurs. Grow the pie. A focus on increasing conversion tends to have a narrowing effect.

[kristianc]

Sure, but if the advice works, you'd see failure rate drops over time. It would work like medicine - we have more people than ever before, but almost no one dies of polio anymore. That's not what we see though, failure rate is basically the same.

[PunchyHamster]

Arguably that mostly says stuff about average VC skill to pick winning idea.

If you have good product idea, the methodology to get there mostly affect profit marigins, not whether it will be success or total failure

[cladopa]

>Arguably that mostly says stuff about average VC skill to pick winning idea.

What happens is that the original idea rarely matters at all. It is the people that implements the idea what matters.

The original idea is almost always terrible, but great people pivot or change the idea gradually while having contact with reality.

[sobellian]

Execution is very important. Startups almost never start with the "right" idea.