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In general, 50% of American businesses fail during the first five years. (I was told that quite a long time ago; I don't know the current figure.) Go have a l
by MichaelCrawford 12y ago
In general, 50% of American businesses fail during the first five years. (I was told that quite a long time ago; I don't know the current figure.)
Go have a look at the websites of some venture firms. At least them list all of the portfolio companies they've ever had, even if they've exited. Now look into whether those companies failed, were acquired, whether the IPO worked out well and so on.
That's going to be a lot of work but would be valuable information for everyone to know. If you wrote up on article about it on your site, you'd get lots of readers, inbound links, maybe press coverage.
- striking 12y agoIt would also likely dispel (to a degree) the survivorship bias [1] that is pervasive in the Valley today. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Survivorship_bias https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Survivorship_bias
- MichaelCrawford 12y agoThe Anthropic Principle is conceptually similar to Survivorship Bias. Loosely speaking, the reason we humans find the Universe so hospital to us, if that if the Universe were not hospitable to humans, we wouldn't be here to wonder why. In reality, the vast majority of planets are completely unsuitable for life, not just intelligent life - too hot, too cold, too small, and so not enough gravity for an atmosphere &c.
- asotelo 12y agoThanks Michael, indeed it would be a nice article. I believe that in the early stages of ideation the percentages are considerably higher. The founders of javelin board mention 98% of startup ideas fail. My concern is only at the experiment or interview level. If you ask 100 people, how many should be enough to proceed spending time/money on further analysis? Do you think 70% of positive feedback is pretending too much??