How can you avoid the pitfalls that destroy most entrepreneurs? Rob Kelly, a San Francisco-based Internet veteran who has started, sold, bought and, by his own admission, even bankrupted a business, says there are five major mistakes entrepreneurs of failed businesses make. If you avoid these mistakes, he says, your chances of creating a winning business go way up.
1. Failed entrepreneurs believe that "if you build it, they will come": Webvan is perhaps the most compelling example of a business that assumed tons of customers would flock to its service.
In reality, what happened (as reported in The Four Steps to the Epiphany by Steven Gary Blank) was:
- They had close to 400 employees by the time they shipped their first product.
- They spent $18 million to develop proprietary software and $40 million to set up their first automated warehouse (before they had shipped a single item).
- One month after Webvan's product shipped, they spent $1 billion on a warehouse deal with Bechtel.
To read the full, original article click on this link: Why Entrepreneurs Fail So Often
Author:Mitchell York
