If you google the phrase "the top reasons why startups fail," you will find that 14% of the time, it is attributed to "not the right team."
CB Insights' post-mortem report based on 111 startups since 2018 shows that in some cases, NOT THE RIGHT TEAM creates a domino effect that eventually leads to reasons that stop the clock for a startup. A below-average team often compounding to below-average teamwork could lead a startup to poor cash flow management, getting outcompeted, launching an inferior product, et cetera.
Thus it becomes imperative for investors to learn about the relevant experience and skillset of the founders they would be investing in.
SSS - Short Sad Story
Katerra, the high-flying construction startup that had once raised a humongous amount of nearly $1.5B in funding, crashed severely due to the lack of relevant experience of the founder and the creeping mismanagement in the company.
"The SoftBank-backed startup said it could slash the cost of building and renovating apartments, luring big-name investors. But the company, run by a tech veteran with no previous construction experience, ignored escalating problems and at one point tried to burnish revenue information shown to its board and financial backers."
The lesson learnt: A diverse team with different skill sets and relevant experience is critical to the success of a startup.
A Better Story
ZeNPulsar, a deep-tech, Europe based digital forensics startup, is the perfect example of such a team. It defends businesses against the increasing threat of cyber-attacks and online disinformation by detecting and predicting social media manipulation with solutions such as Pump and Holmes.
ZenPulsar's diverse founding team comprises experienced corporate professionals with strong entrepreneurship understanding. Their core competencies are AI, machine learning, data science, cyber security, forensic, and finance. Each member has a history of launching successful ventures – and working previously at the senior level for the biggest names in Management Consulting, Banking, Cyber Security, and Data Science.
The team firmly realised a need for more online integrity and transparency and thus put their 85+ years of total experience to work on building ZeNPulsar.
"The corporates encouraging employees to work from home shall make sure of educating their employees about information literacy. Their employee shall practice preventive, detecting, and responding measures to keep their cyber security at par with any phishing attacks," says Paul Wang, CEO of ZeNPulsar, in an interview with Yelena Ganshof van der Meersch.
High profile Swiss startup accelerator programs have recognised ZeNPulsar: Breakthrough Impact fellowship, Geneva; and Tech4Trust - Trust Valley Swiss Program 2021. You can read more about ZeNPulsar and all five co-founders here:
- Paul Wang, Co-founder & CEO ZeNPulsar
- Charles Desclos le Peley, Co-founder & Head of Operations and Finance at ZeNPulsar
- Paul Dudko, Co-founder & Head of Product and Data Science at ZeNPulsar
- Julien Artero, Co-founder & Head of Market & Sales Strategy at ZeNPulsar
- Alexander Pisemskiy, Co-founder & Head of Technology Strategy at ZeNPulsar
Do you believe if you get the team right, you lay a foundation that becomes unshakeable despite a raging hurricane?
