After 14 years running my own businesses, I’ve failed a lot. I haven’t kept count thankfully, but I’d say I’ve started at least 50 businesses / ideas and out of those, 3 have worked. And when I say worked I don’t mean staying in business, I mean resulting in either a decent income for me at the time or a decent asset that’s worth something to me or someone else. With all the risks you take as an entrepreneur, I don’t see replacing your job and getting to work from home as a significant enough reward to count as success.

The startup community likes to glorify failure but I don’t. Failing sucks. Failing slow sucks infinitely more. That’s why it’s OK sometimes to give up, to free you up to move onto an idea that could bring you something that the startup community doesn’t talk about near as much: actual fulfilment and success.

Summary:

1. You are completely clueless about what you are getting yourself into
2. You are working on more than 1 thing
3. You are the wrong person for the job
4. It’s not a business it’s a charity
5. You can’t build a story / brand around it
6. You are trying to change buying habits
7. You are operating mainly on assumptions
8. Your offering isn’t interesting enough
9. You are getting bad advice