These dirty mistakes silently kill business growth:

(i've literally seen it across all founders that i worked with)

- lack of product demand. being first to market is often a wrong idea; targeting a non-existent niche is a critical mistake.  

- building features without speaking with customers.  

- not enough focus on sales. sales should begin from the day the mvp is ready.

- not building good relationships with employees. leading by fear alienates talented employees who have options.  

- promising equity but not putting it on paper makes employees hesitant to stay.  

- building with an exit strategy in mind, especially revolving around a single big business acquisition, is risky.  

- hiring interns rarely makes sense for ambitious startups.  

- following the hype instead of focusing on monetization.

- raising capital too fast, often before achieving traction or product-market fit (pmf).  

- focusing on unnecessary work at an early stage, such as adding analytics or excessive features.  

- not being fast enough: long meetings, unnecessary travel, excessive days off, inefficient capital allocation, wrong hires, etc.

- founder-market fit isn’t mandatory but accelerates progress significantly when present.  

- using buzzwords in startup features instead of providing clear value.  

- not iterating enough based on user feedback.  

- not discussing numbers (user retention rate, churn rate, revenue, profits, capital allocation, etc.) regularly

- failing to track essential kpis like ltv (lifetime value) and cac (customer acquisition cost).  

- not being transparent about pricing on the landing page; making customers click ‘request demo’ can deter them.  

- burning capital too quickly without considering the runway.

- overspending on marketing, product development, or hiring without a clear roi plan.  

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