Real-Life Startup Post-Mortems [Part III]
We always hear about success stories, but can learn so much more from failure.
This is a 4-post series:
3x editions featuring 2 startups each
1x edition with research and my SXSW presentation
9 out of 10 startups don’t work out.
The 1 out 10 startups that do work we try to learn from:
perseverance, hard work, and doing things that don’t scale.
But the 9 out of 10 companies that didn’t work also had these characteristics
- so are they the right lessons?
Learn from the companies that didn’t work, so you don’t repeat the same mistakes.
Planes in WWII had bullet holes upon return from missions (red dots).
The WRONG interpretation is that these are the places getting hit and need more armor (= the success stories).
The CORRECT interpretation is that these are the places where hits were non-fatal so the other spots need additional armor (= the failures that we never hear from).👉 Want to share your startup story that didn’t work out?
Fill this out so everyone gets to learn from you.
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Here are the post-mortems of Aussie startups captured by their founders.
⚽️ RefLIVE - referee software
Customer: Referees, then state and national sports organisations
Problem: Referees were using a stopwatch, notepad and pen to track time and record match information. Sports organisations had very high levels of turnover from match officials, sideline behaviour problems and abusive behaviour towards match officials.
Solution: A smartwatch app for referees, followed by a SaaS analytics platform for sports organisations to improve retention, reduce abuse and create a feedback loop from match officials to league administrators.
Pivot?
Not really.
Best success?
80k+ downloads of our app in over 150 countries and 10+ B2B customers, about half international customers and over $100k ARR.
Top 3 Problems?
Staff turnover
Cultural problems (abuse)
Performance reviews.
One reason it failed?
Unit economics. It was a great product but ultimately required too much account management and sales/marketing relative to how much we could charge.
If you were to solve again, how do it differently?
Would not try again.
We veered off the original mission and ended up too disconnected from the problem, it was something we didn’t primarily experience.
Your main lessons?
Understand unit economics and create distribution strategies while building product.
Always try something hard, but know when to quit earlier.
We probably stuck at it two years too long.
🧠 AsyncBrain - decision-making software
Customer: Remote-first companies
Problem: Hard to brainstorm and make decisions, efficiently
Solution: Async brainstorming and decision-making tool
Pivot?
Yes, last minute we changed from decision-making for a niche to how to measure their brand health for DevTool companies.
Best success?
Close to Startmate Demo Day we got 8 letters of intent signed after users tested the MVP
Top 3 Problems?
People understood the problem, but couldn’t get in the habit of making decisions differently.
I was focusing on building software. The big challenge was building a “movement”, like what happened to project management. Atlassian didn’t just build Jira out of nowhere. The agile manifesto and movement was created earlier and they rode that wave.
This is a hard problem to crack. Honestly, I think like Notion and Figma, this is the type of space that might take years of experimentation until you find the formula (it took Notion 4 years to find it and Figma 5 years).
One reason it failed?
Couldn’t raise capital to build a team to experiment fast enough and build the “movement” I’m talking about
.If you were to solve again, how do it differently?
Yes, with at least 2 years of runway to begin with.
Your main lessons?
That every product and market is different.
I co-founded a $40m Wine Subscription business that needed to have and had traction from day zero. AsyncBrain would really be in a category that needs to change the way people work. Habits. This is capital-intensive and requires a strong team to experiment fast enough for a long enough time horizon.