3 Real Reasons Why Many Online Startups Fail (and How to Turn Things Around)

I love to hangout on some fantastic online communities, like Quora and BizSugar. One reason I’m doing so is to gain some insights and to watch for emerging trends – both are useful in discovering new opportunities and growing my online business.

During my visit on BizSugar, my attention was grabbed by a particular story shared by Martin Zwilling, an entrepreneur, investor, and mentor. It’s a story from his blog, titled “Don’t Let Your Business Be A Dead Startup Walking.”

A catchy title. An even more catchy content.

Martin explains that the typical reasons given by failing startups include the lack of funding and the quickly-depleted startup capital. He believes that there are more than just those two. And I share his belief.

As I read his article, I keep on thinking about my travel site that I just started about 2 months ago.

To clarify, my startup is doing well, but its growth is far less than I was hoping for. I’ve tried several different things to boost the growth, and so far, the impact is not significant.

Reading Martin’s post, I decided to find the root of the problem and fix it. So far, the root of the problem is: Me.

Evaluating myself, the founder, I discovered some glaring problems. I do expect a lengthy learning curve, as I started an online business that is outside my typical niche, and discovering problems early give me an opportunity to turn things around quickly.

Here are my top 3 problems, starting up an online business.

1. I’m delusional

Described by Martin as ‘historical myopia’, I did based my projected success on the recent success of other travel sites. To make matter worse, due to my lack of knowledge in the niche I’m starting a website in, I tend to use my past success – and the success of others I know – to anticipate the success of my travel startup.

Both are a deadly combination. Let’s just say that I’m delusional; I’m a dreamer.

If I want to get back on track, I have to snap myself out of my dreamy journey, and see the reality, knowing that the best way I can do to start making a change is research and analysis.

I need to start evaluating what successful travel sites and blogs do to get to where they are right now. I should focus on what other travel sites are doing in order to thrive in the niche.

2. Me – as an ideal customer

I was always asking myself when building a web business, “if I was a customer, what would I think of my website?” Well, I obviously need to stop doing this and change my question to “What would my ideal customers think about my websites?”

You see, you and I build a web business to cater the target market – to help them solve their ‘problems’, to help them find what they are looking for faster – while we make money in the process.

It doesn’t matter what I think about my business; what matters is what my target market think about my business. And to understand that, you need to put an effort in learning more about your ideal customers: Do market analysis, launch surveys and take advice from niche forums.

3. I fail to keep up with the market shift

I follow some of the best experts out there, yet I didn’t follow their advice, suggestions, and recommendations. Not even half of what I read, watch and hear.

Did you know why Facebook remains one of the most valuable social platforms for marketers, despite the rants behind the decline in their organic reach? This infographic can show you why:

Source: Villanova Online MBA Program

One of the experts I follow, Gary Vaynerchuk, has warned over, and over, and over again that we need to market in the year we live in. Meaning, I need to do marketing, adopting the strategies and tactics that are effective in catering today’s market.

This year, I’m going stop using marketing strategies that are obsolete. How? First thing first, I need to be where my target market is; I need to hangout on the places my customers go.

For my startup travel site, I need to got o travel forums. I need to put up an effort on building a community in Pinterest, Twitter, and Instagram. The trend says “consider not to use Facebook, unless you are going to do paid advertising campaigns” – so I will put less emphasis on non-paid Facebook marketing and start focusing on those 3 social networks I mentioned – along with some emerging social networks like Tsu.

Let’s get down to work!

So, there you go – 3 online startup problems I am facing, which could be yours, too – and ways to fix those.

If you have some advice, please share with us. Or, if you share similar problems with me, please share what you are working on to fix those so, together, we can solve our problems!