Why do startups fail? Here’s 287 of them to dissect.

It’s really important to take into account the geography of businesses and startups when talking about anything to do with them. Especially funding, and infact the entire ‘Startup culture’.

Have a scroll through this list of 287 dead startups and if you’re based in the UK, you’ll wonder at the sheer volume of money burned. If you’re based in the US, you’ll know it’s just the way things are. And if you’re based in South America or Asia or Africa you’ll think it’s another planet they’re talking about.

If there’s one thing US startups know how do do it’s raise and burn money. $56M + raised and burned for a startup delivering cooked meals in San Francisco. A WiFi connected wine bottle that killed $8m. Some of these startups have a tinge of ‘We live in a bubble and can’t think outside of it’ about them.

It also says a lot about the funding mentality in the US. From where I’m sitting, it looks like a case of ‘throw a lot of money at a lot of enterprises and hopefully something will actually work and pay for all the rest’.

And as soon as something does look like it’s actually viable, and has a team capable of scaling it, Every VC wants to pile as much money as possible into it, sending the valuations crazy. Dog walking apps raising hundreds of millions. Is that the best SV has to offer?

It’s compelling reading, scrolling through the obituaries of ideas, behind each one a team, sometimes hundreds of people, who believed and tried to crack the almost impossible puzzle of how to turn their ambitions into a reality. Some leave behind a meaningful legacy, all do infact, in terms of experience. It’s also sad, but as I said to Blippar when they passed, ‘We live, We die, We live again’,

They liked it.