Bar chart
Why 385 startups said they shut down
Reasons given in post-mortems and shutdown announcements
A bar chart of the reasons that 385 venture-backed startups gave when they shut down, drawn from post-mortems, founder interviews and shutdown notices collected by CB Insights. Running out of money is the most common, but the report treats it as the last step. Use it to explain why picking the right problem comes before building. Companies could give several reasons.
Where this appears
What's in this bar chart
| Share of companies | |
|---|---|
| Ran out of capital | 70% |
| Poor product-market fit | 43% |
| Bad timing | 29% |
| Unsustainable unit economics | 19% |
Companies could name more than one reason, so shares add up to more than 100.
Use this image
Free to use in your docs, decks and posts under CC BY 4.0, as long as you credit Koji with a link to this page. To embed it, paste this into your page:
html
<a href="https://www.koji.so/visuals/why-startups-fail-reasons-385-shutdowns"><img src="https://www.koji.so/visuals/why-startups-fail-reasons-385-shutdowns/why-startups-fail-reasons-385-shutdowns.png" alt="Bar chart of reasons 385 shut-down startups gave: ran out of capital 70 percent, poor product-market fit 43, bad timing 29, weak unit economics 19." width="1200" height="630" /></a>
<p>Source: <a href="https://www.koji.so/visuals/why-startups-fail-reasons-385-shutdowns">Why 385 startups said they shut down</a>, Koji</p>
