Startup Anti-Patterns

<p>An anti-pattern is a commonly used process, structure, or pattern of action that, despite initially appearing to be an appropriate and effective response to a problem, has more bad consequences than good ones.</p><p>Simeon Simeonov first wrote an introduction to the value of startup anti-patterns back in 2013. To sum it up, it’s hard to pinpoint the exact set of reasons startups succeed, but experienced entrepreneurs and investors have a good sense of what drives startups’ failures.</p><p>Startup anti-patterns are all about that — patterns that increase the risks associated with startups (hey, it’s a risky business to begin with). Pursuing an anti-pattern doesn’t mean that your company will die tomorrow or in the next year, but each anti-pattern adds-up and could lead to clouding your focus and hampering your ability to execute.</p><p>Together with Itamar Novick from Recursive Ventures, Simeon Simeonov is bringing the Startup anti-pattern series to life. Stay tuned for more in this series as we work through each anti-pattern with tangible examples from our experiences as founders and investors in 100+ startups, and the experiences of guest founders from our portfolio.</p><p>**Startup Anti-Patterns full list (work in progress…)**</p><p>Studying repeatable patterns of startup failure (startup anti-patterns) is more useful than studying non-repeatable strategies for startup success.</p><p>Top Startup Anti-Patterns:</p><p>- Elephant hunting<br>- Ignorance<br>- Platform risk<br>- If you build it, they will come<br>- Bad revenue<br>- Chasing the competition<br>- Chasing Blue Oceans<br>- Analysis paralysis<br>- (Founder) Arrogance<br>- Boiling the ocean<br>- Bridge to nowhere<br>- Design by committee<br>- Confirmation bias<br>- Bleeding on the edge<br>- Attribution risk<br>- Changing strategy instead of execution<br>- Confusing activity with results<br>- Consulting to product<br>- Death by pivot<br>- Deathmarch<br>- Delayed scaling<br>- Demand generation<br>- Designing for investors<br>- Drag<br>- Escalation of commitment<br>- Escape to the familiar<br>- Escapism<br>- Featuritis<br>- Forward thinking<br>- Founderitis<br>- Groupthink<br>- Hail Mary<br>- Ivory tower<br>- Lack of focus<br>- Lagging indicators<br>- Learned helplessness<br>- Long feedback cycles<br>- Lying to investors<br>- Magic salesperson<br>- Mentor whiplash<br>- Missing your exit<br>- Myopic bootstrapping<br>- Next round only<br>- Not knowing your investors<br>- One-off customization<br>- Oooh, shiny!<br>- Overengineering<br>- Overselling<br>- Oversteering<br>- Platform trap<br>- Premature optimization<br>- Premature scaling<br>- Promiscuity<br>- Proof by anecdote<br>- Pushing a rope<br>- Raising too little<br>- Random founders<br>- Scapegoat<br>- Second class citizens<br>- Seed extensions<br>- Secrecy<br>- Silver bullet<br>- Spreadsheet Bingo<br>- Stovepipes<br>- The one idea entrepreneur<br>- Top-down planning<br>- Uber pivot<br>- Underqualifying<br>- Unicorn hunting<br>- Unrealistic expectations<br>- Warm bodies<br>- Weak board<br>- Yes man<br>- Zombie<br>- Outsourcing your architecture (via Alan Neveu)</p><p>*Note: the list is not “drawn to scale.” Some anti-patterns occur more frequently than others and some are more likely to cause a startup to fail than others. *</p>