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Wish he had touched on the rate at which consumer-oriented startups are failing. My perception is that the success rate is going down, and we only have huge suc
by MatthewPhillips 14y ago
Wish he had touched on the rate at which consumer-oriented startups are failing. My perception is that the success rate is going down, and we only have huge success stories (Pinterest, Kickstarter) and failures. I'm counting acquihires as failures because we just don't know. But my perception might be wrong. We do know that only a tiny minority of apps are making any money in the App Store, and the move from the web to phones must mean there are fewer successful web startups as well.
- jpdoctor 14y ago> I'm counting acquihires as failures because we just don't know. I'd add: During tech bubble v1, the acquihire deals stopped as the many failures put significant amounts of talent on the market. For example: Salaries for IC designers quickly rationalized.
- fredwilson 14y agothat would be a wonderful thing if it were to happen
- fredwilson 14y agowe haven't seen that yet although i suspect you are right. we tend to stick with our portfolio companies longer than we maybe should so it will take a while before we see what the failure rates are. in our 2004 fund, which is pretty mature now, the failure rate was about 33%, which is what we model it out to be at the start of a fund