<story><title>Y Combinator Failed Startups</title><url>https://www.failory.com/blog/y-combinator-failures</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>twmahna</author><text>Worth noting that the proximate cause of death is often times largely uninformative as to why the startup actually failed.&lt;p&gt;Most failed startups fit into the following timeline:
was burning more money than it was making =&amp;gt; 
failed at raising more money =&amp;gt; 
did a round of layoffs &amp;#x2F; cost cuts to get economics under control =&amp;gt;
couldn&amp;#x27;t right the ship and shut down &amp;#x2F; did a fire sale or acquihire&lt;p&gt;But, the above timeline doesn&amp;#x27;t teach you much about why the company really failed.  The real answer almost always involves a multitude of contributing factors, and requires intimate knowledge of the startup&amp;#x27;s business.&lt;p&gt;For the most part, the only reliable source for this type of information is one of the founders, board members, or (sometimes but not always) c-level execs.  And, even then, they have to be willing to be vulnerable (which is very rare).&lt;p&gt;If I could give some advice to Failory, it would be to think about how you can incentivize founders to share their stories.  As it stands, they have little to gain and potentially a lot to lose (e.g. being labeled one of YC&amp;#x27;s &amp;quot;biggest failures&amp;quot;)</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>ChuckMcM</author><text>One of the best talks I had was a two hour discussion of this very topic with John Walecka. John had invested in Freegate and we were discussing risks and why things failed.&lt;p&gt;He helped me understand both the concept of &amp;#x27;stacking risk&amp;#x27; (where the startup is taking on more unknowns than it should) and &amp;#x27;over burning&amp;#x27; where a startup attempts to hire itself into shortening its schedule which not only fails but exhausts needed capital.&lt;p&gt;To this day I never hire an engineer if I cannot write down EXACTLY what they will be working on and how it will help the schedule. Even if they are a &amp;quot;super star&amp;quot;, if I don&amp;#x27;t have something for them to do that will check off things that are currently on the path to the next milestone, no offer.&lt;p&gt;Whenever I&amp;#x27;ve watched over hiring from inside or outside it tends to end badly.</text></comment>
<story><title>Y Combinator Failed Startups</title><url>https://www.failory.com/blog/y-combinator-failures</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>twmahna</author><text>Worth noting that the proximate cause of death is often times largely uninformative as to why the startup actually failed.&lt;p&gt;Most failed startups fit into the following timeline:
was burning more money than it was making =&amp;gt; 
failed at raising more money =&amp;gt; 
did a round of layoffs &amp;#x2F; cost cuts to get economics under control =&amp;gt;
couldn&amp;#x27;t right the ship and shut down &amp;#x2F; did a fire sale or acquihire&lt;p&gt;But, the above timeline doesn&amp;#x27;t teach you much about why the company really failed.  The real answer almost always involves a multitude of contributing factors, and requires intimate knowledge of the startup&amp;#x27;s business.&lt;p&gt;For the most part, the only reliable source for this type of information is one of the founders, board members, or (sometimes but not always) c-level execs.  And, even then, they have to be willing to be vulnerable (which is very rare).&lt;p&gt;If I could give some advice to Failory, it would be to think about how you can incentivize founders to share their stories.  As it stands, they have little to gain and potentially a lot to lose (e.g. being labeled one of YC&amp;#x27;s &amp;quot;biggest failures&amp;quot;)</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>new_realist</author><text>Most startups fail.  I don’t think most founders have the acumen to really know the full story of their own failure.</text></comment>