I have seen countless authors cite statistics that say 80 to 90 percent of startups fail within the first 18 months. Many of those citations are out of date or just apocryphal. What is true is that failure has become a badge of honor and failure postmortems so vogue in places like Silicon Valley, you would think some people wanted to fail. I never do, and neither do most people. In fact, the numbers are not quite as dire in a 2016 article cited research by the Statistic Brain Research Institute, which broke down startup failure rates by industry after four years. But the reality is still more than half of all startups failed in that time – and not because of fraud or any criminal acts.
The number one reason? Incompetence.
Having been a corporate officer and a successful entrepreneur, I’ve learned that many of the principles to create a successful business are the same – whether you are a leader in a Fortune 1000 company or an entrepreneur in your own venture. The only real differences are the magnitude of resources, qualification of talent, size of budgets, the politics you deal with and the performance metrics – and your competency in dealing with all of them. The rest is just a different kind of competence – common sense – and without it, most people will complicate things, rather than staying the course during times of uncertainty and change.
Leading and/or running a business is all about the details. Whether it’s a sales issue, quality control, client relations or a marketing strategy, the difference between being good and being great is the attention to detail you apply to make sure momentum is not lost after the first year or two and get into a rut. And whether it is marketplace demands, knowing exactly what your clients expect or how to improve your product/service offerings or sales approach, you can avoid that rut and keep your growth momentum by getting close to the details and doing the following things.