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I totally agree that there's a selection bias for stories about successful outliers. On the other hand, it's not as if anyone is out there saying "Try it! You'l

I totally agree that there's a selection bias for stories about successful outliers. On the other hand, it's not as if anyone is out there saying "Try it! You'll probably succeed!" Quite the opposite; almost everyone knows and admits that 9/10 fail. Eric Ries has a great line in his talks about this. I'm paraphrasing it, but it's something like: "9/10 startups fail. I know yours is awesome so it won't, but the guy on your left; his will. The girl to your right; hers will. Same goes for their neighbours too." Despite the failure, it was worth doing. I learnt a lot. About startups, about customers, and also about me. And besides, failing is faster than success! Thanks for the kind words.

bravura 14y ago
Perhaps the real problem is your counter-reaction: "almost everyone knows and admits that 9/10 fail." A lot of people think that, but it's not 9 out of 10 startups that fail. It's FAAR worse odds than that.
- Dylan16807 14y ago
  Oh? How far worse.
  - bravura 14y ago
    I seem to have the number 1% as the success rate in my head. Doing some Googling gives a number like 10% success, but it's not clear whether these figures are only for companies that received VC-funding. So actually, I'm not sure. Point taken.
    - eru 14y ago
      It's probably easier to make lifestyle businesses pay off. And how is success / failure defined? I can imagine failure might mean that the VCs didn't make money? Then it could still have been worthwhile for the founders.