Studer Community Institute

For startups, timing is often of the essence

October 5, 2015
/ Mike Ensley
/ studer-community-institute

Inc. has a new story up that suggests timing is a huge factor in whether new businesses succeed or fail.

In a TED Talk given by entreprenuer and Idealab founder Bill Gross, he explains how he analyzed 200 companies to determine why they succeeded or failed.

Included in his study were unabashed hits--billion dollar successes like Airbnb, Instagram, Uber and Youtube, plus Idealab's own CarsDirect, NetZero, and Tickets.com. To correct for cognitive bias however, he also looked at companies that didn't live up to their great expectations--things like Webvan, Kozmo, Pets.com and Friendster, and he analyzed their relative strengths in five areas:

1. How good was the idea?

2. How good was the team?

3. How good was the business model?

4. How good was the funding?

5. How good was the timing?

The result? Timing was the number one factor in determining success.

"Is the idea way too early and the world's not ready for it?" Gross said he asked. "Is it early, as in, you're in advance and you have to educate the world? Is it just right? Or is it too late, and there's already too many competitors?"

You can read the full piece here.

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For startups, timing is often of the essence

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