Issue 026: 42% of Startups Fail for This One Reason (And How to Avoid It), 8 Content Ideas for Building in Public, and More

We also discuss why you shouldn’t vacation like Steve Jobs.

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March 12, 2025 | #026 | Free Version

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Welcome to Startup Blitz, a weekly newsletter full of timeless ideas and insights you can use in your online business.

This week, we discuss –

đź’Ą 42% of startups fail for this one reason (and how to avoid it)

🤝 How to make building in public your main growth channel

🏖️ Why you shouldn’t vacation like Steve Jobs

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42% of Startups Fail for This Reason. Here’s How to Avoid It

Most startups don’t make it. About 90% collapse within a few years. According to CB Insights, 42% of them fail simply because there’s no market need.
Half of all startups fail not because of poor products, cash flow issues, or bad sales teams. They fail because no one actually wants what they’re selling.
Founders often believe their product is special. They think, “If I build it, they will come.” But when they launch, nothing happens.
So, how do you avoid this trap? How do you make sure there’s demand before you even start?

According to Martin O’Leary, the answer is simple. Build an audience before you build a product. Create a community that’s waiting for your launch.

The Benefits of Launching with an Audience

According to Martin, building an audience before launch has some major advantages:

Instant validation: Your audience becomes your early adopters. You can test your ideas with them before investing your time and money.

More flexibility: You’re not locked into one product idea. You can test multiple ideas with them and pursue the one with the most interest.

Built-in demand: When you launch, people are already waiting. You won’t need to do too much marketing.

Lower costs: You won’t need to spend money on advertising to find your first customers.

Harder to copy: Competitors can copy your product. But they can’t copy your audience.

How to Build Your Audience From Scratch

You don’t need thousands of followers to get all these benefits. A few hundred engaged people can be enough.

Here’s how to can get started with building an audience:

Find your community: Where does your audience hang out? LinkedIn, Twitter, Threads or Facebook Groups? Join these communities. Share your expertise, reply to people and provide value.

Create in-depth content: Don’t do what everyone else is doing. Stand out by creating smart, in-depth content. Provide novel solutions to problems your audience faces.

Partner with existing creators: Look for influencers launching a book or new products. Ask them if they’d be willing to do an interview with you. You’ll get followers from their audience.

Build your email list: Social media algorithms are unreliable. You live at the mercy of them. So gently push people to your email list. Offer a lead magnet (ebook, checklist, etc.) in exchange for their email address.

Create a community: After you’ve released your product, create a Discord/Slack community for it. Your most loyal followers will join. Use it to gather feedback, share updates, and provide support.

Martin shares many more insights in his original post. You can check it out here.

How to Grow Your Startup by Building in Public

Once you’ve launched your product, one of the best ways to grow is by building in public.

This means openly sharing your journey on social media. Talk about your wins, failures, lessons, and progress. Talk about everything involved with building your company.

It’s human nature to follow stories and narratives. This makes building in public a fantastic way to get attention. Many startups use building in public as their main growth channel.
It also helps you form a deeper connection with your audience. When people feel involved in your journey, they become more loyal. They’re more likely to talk about your products with their friends and less likely to switch to your competitors.
And if you ever want to raise funding, building in public can make the process easier by increasing your visibility and credibility.
Here are 8 types of content you can publish after you’ve launched your product:
1. Share your vision and goals. Show people what you’re working toward.
2. Talk about any new features you are releasing.

3. You’ll gain a lot of insights while building your product. So share what you’ve learned.

4. Highlight your wins. What’s going well? Did you land a new partnership? Are your growth numbers looking good? Talk about them and add some interesting takeaways.
5. Not everything will go as planned. Talk about your mistakes and what you’ve learned from them.

6. Create tutorials. Show people how to get the most out of your product.

7. Celebrate your customers. Share the result they are getting with your product.

8. Post monthly updates. Share progress reports with hard numbers and insights.

By sharing these types of content, you’ll create a community that roots for your success.

📖 Book of the Week: Why You Shouldn’t Vacation Like Steve Jobs

This week, I want to highlight Build: An Unorthodox Guide to Making Things Worth Making by Tony Fadell.

Fadell is a former Apple engineer. He is often called the “father of the iPod and iPhone.” In this book, he shares the lessons he has learned while building some of the most influential devices in history – the iPod, iPhone, and Nest Learning Thermostat.
One of the insights he shares is why you shouldn’t vacation like Steve Jobs.
“Steve would typically take two weeks off, twice a year. We’d always dread those vacations at Apple. The first forty-eight hours were quiet. After that it would be a storm of nonstop calls.
“He wasn’t tied up in meetings, worrying about the day-to-day, so he was free. Free to dream about the future of Apple at all hours of the day and night. Free to call and get our thoughts on whatever crazy idea just occurred to him—what about video glasses to watch movies from the video iPod?
“Yes? No? He’d want us to give our perspective right then or find answers fast so he could refine his thinking.
“He worked harder on vacation than he did in the office.
“That kind of crazy, nonstop focus sounds like just another Apple legend. The kind of thing only a mad genius would do. But it’s not, really.
“Steve took it to an extreme, but a lot of people can’t get work out of their heads. I can’t. I’d hazard to say that most people can’t, especially when there’s a lot on the line. It’s not just CEOs and executives— everybody has crunch times. There’s just too much to do and you know more is coming, so even when you’re not doing the work, you think about it.
“And sometimes that’s okay. Really. Sometimes it’s your only option. But there’s a world of difference between racking your brain, ruminating all night about a work crisis, versus letting yourself think about work in an unstructured, creative way. The latter gives your brain the freedom to stop hammering away at the same problems with the same worn-down tools. Instead, you let your mind rummage around to find new ones.
“Sometimes I thought that’s why Steve took vacations—not to relax, not to avoid Apple, but to give himself a nice long time to rummage as he spent time with his family. Instead of trying to find true balance or allowing anyone else to find it, Steve ran full tilt. He let Apple become all-consuming in a way that pushed everything else in his life, except his family, to the periphery.
“Most people have experienced that kind of complete collapse of work/life balance in critical moments when the pressure’s really on. But it’s how Steve lived. And if you’re not Steve Jobs—if you have to think about work all the time but you don’t want to think about work all the time—then you need to have a system.
“You have to find a way to stay sane—to manage the inevitable swirling morass of tasks and meetings and plans and questions and problems and progress and fears. And you have to architect your schedule so your body and brain don’t get burned out or bloated beyond recognition. I say this as someone who’s been there—I physically and mentally fell apart at General Magic. Humans cannot survive on stress and Diet Coke alone.”
To find a work/life balance, you need a clear organisational strategy. You need to prioritize. Otherwise, you’ll kill any meager chance you have of relaxing for a minute.
Fadell shares how you can do that:
“So here’s what I did: I took several sheets of paper with me everywhere. They had all the top milestones in front of us for each of the disciplines—engineering, HR, finance, legal, marketing, facilities, etc.—and everything we needed to do to reach those milestones.
“Every top-level question that I had was on those papers. So when I was in a meeting or talking to someone, I could quickly scan it. What are my top issues? What issues do our customers have? What’s the current roadblock for this person’s team? What are the next major milestones? What date commitments did our teams make?
“And then there was the best part—the ideas. Whenever someone had a great idea that we had to table for the moment—an improvement to the product or the organization—I’d write it down. So right next to the list of that week’s to-dos and tasks, there was a working library of all the things we couldn’t wait to begin. I’d regularly read them to myself and see if they still applied. It kept me inspired and excited and focused on the future. And it was great for the team. They saw that I paid attention to their ideas and made sure we kept thinking about them.”
“Every Sunday evening, I would go through my notes, reassess and reprioritize all my tasks, rifle through the good ideas, then update those papers on a computer and print out a new version for the week. Continually reprioritizing allowed me to zoom out and see what could be combined or eliminated. It let me spot moments when we were trying to do too much.
“Those were the evenings when I’d realize why we were so overwhelmed—we had said “yes” to too many things and we needed to start saying “no.” And then came the hard work of figuring out what had to be delegated, what had to be delayed, and what had to be crossed off the list. I was forced to prioritize based on what really mattered, as opposed to what was just top of mind. That let me keep my eye on the bigger goals and milestones ahead of us, not just the fires at our feet or whatever feature we were most excited about that day.
“Then Sunday night I’d email the whole list out to my management team. Each item had a name attached to it. Everyone could look at the top of the list to see what I’d be focused on that week, what they were accountable for, and what the next major milestones were.
“And every Monday, we’d have a meeting about it.
“It started as a one-sheeter. Eventually it grew to eight pages, ten pages. It was labor intensive. Arcane. Never-ending. But it worked. And eventually my team grew to appreciate it. It kept me (relatively) calm. It helped me focus. And nobody ever had to wonder where my head was at. Everyone always knew what mattered to me—they had my priorities in writing, updated, every week.”
Fadell then explains why you need to take a real break from work:
“Take a walk or read a book or play with your kid or lift some weights or listen to music or just lie on the ground, staring at the ceiling. Whatever you need to do to stop your mind from frantically spinning in circles about work. Once you have a way to prioritize your tasks, you need to prioritize your physical and mental well-being. And I realize that’s easier said than done. Your startup or the project you’re leading is your baby. And babies roll down stairs, eat extension cords. They need constant attention.
“That’s what work can feel like. Even if you take a vacation—and if you’re starting a major project you won’t go on vacation for a good long while—it’s like leaving your kid with a babysitter for the first time. You’re pretty sure they’ll be fine, but, you know, you’ll check just in case. And again in an hour. And maybe on the way home. Did you tell the sitter the baby sneezes when she’s sleepy? Better call again.
“Eventually, you get to trust the babysitter. You’ll know your team can handle things without you.”
“In the long term, you need to plan some vacations. In the short term, here’s what I recommend:
  • 2–3 times a week—Block out parts of your schedule during your workday so you have time to think and reflect. Meditate. Read the news on some subject you don’t work on. Whatever. It can even be tangential to your work, but it should not be actual work. Give your brain a second to catch up. Learn, stay curious, don’t just react to the never-ending stream of fires to put out or meetings to attend.
  • 4–6 times a week—Exercise. Get up. Go biking or running or weight lifting or cross-training or just take a walk. I started getting into yoga at Philips and I’ve kept it up for more than twenty-five years—it’s been hugely helpful. You have to quiet everything around you and focus to do yoga poses properly. You become conscious of your body so you instantly know if you’re off. Find something like that—where you’ll notice if you’re physically or emotionally at a breaking point and will have an opportunity to right yourself before it gets too bad.
  • Eat well—You are an extreme athlete, but your sport is work. So fuel yourself. Don’t eat too much, don’t eat too late, cut down on refined sugars, smoking, alcohol. Just try to keep yourself from physically feeling like garbage.
“And if all this seems great in theory but completely impossible in practice because you can barely keep up with your emails, let alone make time to go to the gym or block out whole months of your life, then you may need to add something else to your to-do list: an assistant.”

You can find the book on Amazon or any major bookstore. If you are building a startup, I highly recommend reading the full book.

Thanks for reading. I hope you have found at least some of these tips helpful.

Until next week!

Sayed Bin Habib

Co-Founder, Startup Blitz

Follow me on LinkedIn / Website

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