The Startup Lifecycle: Why, When, and How Startups Fail (and How to Succeed) Recap

Gregory Shepard is a neurodivergent entrepreneur, investor, author, speaker, advisor, and visionary. He created 12 startups with 12 successful exits and was curious to learn more about why founders fail which led him to do his own research and to build Startup Science, a platform to help founders navigate the startup lifecycle. During his most recent webinar for Santa Cruz Works, Greg shares findings from his research and what he discovered after digging deeper into the reasons why 90% of startups fail over 5 years. Below is a snippet of what he discussed during the beginning of his presentation. Be sure to check out the recording to get all the information!

The innovation lifecycle is comprised of two pieces: value creation and value capture. Value creation is about vision and product, and value capture includes Go-to-market, standardization, optimization, growth, and exit. It’s a no-brainer that founders need to iron out as many kinks as possible if they want to operate their business as efficiently. However, many startups rush to grow and exit and ultimately skip two vital steps: standardization and optimization. This means they often do not have a standardized process for everyone to follow, have many unaddressed inefficiencies, and have not optimized their margins. If this step is skipped, any problems that existed before growth will only get amplified, and precious time and money will be wasted. Founders must include time for completing both steps in their startup’s lifecycle. The whole timeline for the lifecycle from start to exit including each of these vital components can take between 3-5 years.

Watch the video to learn about valuation driver alignment, bad decisions and bad advice, and what founders should be measuring/how they’re measuring things wrong.